IT’S not just Africa that’s facing hardship. India is in the midst of its worst drought for more than a decade. The monsoon rains have failed, dashing hopes of a good harvest this summer as grain, pulse, oilseed and coarse cereal crops wither and die around the country.
Some 70 per cent of India’s one billion people are dependent on agriculture and the crops rely heavily on the four-month monsoon lasting from June to September. But as yet, the rains have failed across south, central, north and north-west India, the country’s agriculture minister Ajit Singh has confirmed. River and reservoir waters are receding, and sowing has come to a standstill in the fields as the few crops still standing shrivel and die. Cattle are also dying for want of fodder. In stark contrast, north-east India and neighbouring Bangladesh and Nepal are experiencing heavy flooding.
The drought has caught meteorologists unawares. In May, the India Meteorological Department forecast normal rains, basing its predictions on 16 environmental parameters, such as ocean and atmospheric temperatures, which influence the coming of the monsoon. Eleven of the parameters indicated favourable rains. One that didn’t was the first signs in February of an impending El Niño, the rise in Pacific Ocean temperatures that is linked to global weather disturbances.
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Preliminary assessments by officials show that 355 out of 524 local districts face drought, with rainfall at between 10 and 20 per cent of the seasonal average. “Even if it rains next month, it will not compensate for the losses already incurred,” says crop expert M. S. Swaminathan, credited as the father of the green revolution. Most of the summer crops will be adversely affected, and although late sowing varieties are available, there may not be enough seed to go round, he told 91av.
It is thought that 10 million tonnes of crops have been damaged across 12 states. In one of the worst hit areas, Rajasthan, farmers have sown just a third of their summer crop, which is already perishing. In Uttar Pradesh over 600,000 hectares of agricultural land has been ruined.
Experts say there are unlikely to be major food shortages in the short term, due to a surplus in production last year. But the drought could spark problems later, as fears grow that a prolonged dry spell may affect wheat sowing in October.
