Monsoon Deficit Narrows in India's Grain Bowl Region

Monsoon deficit in drought-struck northwest Indian states narrowed after rains returned to the country's biggest grain and sugar cane growing region after a two-week lull, a weather bureau official said.
Showers in the region were 40 percent below average on Aug. 16, down from 43 percent on Aug. 12, said S. Kaur, director at India Meteorological Department in New Delhi. The shortfall in the region, which includes Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan, was as high as 50 percent on July 8.
The monsoon season, which brings about three-quarters of the nation's annual rain, may be the driest in seven years, the weather bureau said last week, paring farm output in the world's No.2 producer of rice, wheat and sugar. The revival may improve prospects for crops already planted.
"We need to see sustained and well distributed rains over the next three weeks to ensure that crops, which have survived the lack of rains, fare well," said Ashwini Bansod, a senior analyst at MF Global Commodities India Pvt. in Mumbai. "Most crops are at the grain formation and reproductive stage."
Shares of companies whose fortunes track rural incomes and the domestic economy paced a recovery in the benchmark Sensitive Index, ending a two-day 4.7 percent loss, on optimism a revival in the monsoons may limit the likely drop in incomes of the 742 million people living in villages. Hindustan Lever Ltd., the top consumer company, advanced the most in more than a month, and lenders including ICICI Bank Ltd., the second-biggest, gained.
Rice, the nation's biggest monsoon-sown crop, has been the worst hit: the crop area has fallen 19 percent from a year ago to 24.7 million hectares on Aug. 12, the farm ministry said.
In Bihar, which grows five percent of the country's food grains, farmers planted 40 percent of total area with rice and corn, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said in New Delhi today. The eastern state typically plants rice on 3.5 million hectares and corn to 350,000 hectares, he said.
Karnataka Farmers
Farmers in Karnataka couldn't plant about 26 percent of the planned 7.2 million hectare area as rains in the southern state since July 1 have been the lowest in 40 years, Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa told reporters in New Delhi today.
Rains were 28 percent below the long-period average for the country as a whole on Aug. 16, compared with 29 percent on Aug. 12, weather bureau's Kaur said today. The nation received 434.6 millimeters of rain, compared with an average 602.1 millimeters between 1941 and 1990. Falls in June were the lowest in 83 years.
"The strain created by the overall deficiency in the early part of the monsoon is bound to remain and affect yield," MF Global's Banson said.
Monsoon has been active in the northeast, helping ease the region's rain deficit to 32 percent from 36 percent on Aug. 12. A shortfall in the central states, including Madhya Pradesh, the biggest soybean producer, widened to 21 percent from 19 percent on Aug. 12, the weather office said.