Opinion Express View on the onset of monsoon: The gift of rain
Southwest monsoon has picked up but government can ill afford to ignore the potential El Niño effect
Its effects can extend even to ensuing rabi (winter-spring) crops grown using the groundwater and dam reservoirs that are recharged/refilled during the monsoon. (Express Photo) 
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After a sluggish first two weeks that saw India receive nearly 53 per cent below-normal rains, the southwest monsoon has picked up. Not only has the cumulative rainfall deficit for June 1-26 come down to 18.9 per cent, the monsoon has covered roughly 95 per cent of the country, as against only the Northeast and half of the south till June 14.
That’s good for the plantings of rice, millets, maize, cotton, soyabean, groundnut, arhar, moong, urad and other kharif crops. The current bountiful showers are more than enough for their taking off and should set to rest worries over yield losses from delayed sowing. But crops need water not just for their seeds to germinate, but also during the vegetative and early reproductive growth stages when they are developing roots, stems, leaves and flowers. Therefore, July and August rains matter as much as June for the size of the crops to be harvested from September-end.
That’s where El Niño — the abnormal warming of the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean waters, historically known to suppress rainfall in India — might be a worry. Earlier forecasts pointed to its formation only towards August or later. But the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has already declared El Niño’s arrival and its gradual strengthening into the winter through December-February 2023-24. Subnormal rains in the remaining part of the monsoon season (June-September) can potentially impact not only the current kharif. Its effects can extend even to ensuing rabi (winter-spring) crops grown using the groundwater and dam reservoirs that are recharged/refilled during the monsoon. This is, of course, a worst-case scenario — something governments nevertheless can ill afford to ignore, especially in a year leading to national elections.
On the positive side, though, the stocks of rice, wheat and sugar are comfortable. There’s also the option for more imports of edible oil and pulses such as masoor, arhar and urad, on which duties are nil or have been slashed. The NDA government has so far proved adept at “supply-side management” measures — some of them sensible (lowering import duties) and some retrograde (banning/restricting exports and imposing stocking limits on traders and processors).
One can expect more of these in the days ahead. Meanwhile, there is another source of comfort: Punjab and Haryana. Access to assured irrigation and government procurement at minimum support prices means that farmers of the two states would face less issues as far as water availability for rice and wheat goes. This is one year where nobody, least of all the government, will want them to produce less of the two cereals and divert acreages towards millets, oilseeds or pulses.
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