Global Courant
MUMBAI – India’s monsoon rains this year were the lowest since 2018. The El Nino weather pattern made August the driest in more than a century, the state weather department said on Saturday.
The monsoon, which is vital to India’s US$3 trillion ($4 trillion) economy, provides almost 70 percent of the rain the country needs to water crops and replenish reservoirs and aquifers.
Nearly half of the agricultural land in the world’s most populous country lacks irrigation, making monsoon rains even more important to agricultural production.
The shortage of summer rainfall could make staples such as sugar, pulses, rice and vegetables more expensive and increase overall food inflation.
Lower production could also prompt India, the world’s second-largest producer of rice, wheat and sugar, to further curb exports of these commodities.
Rainfall over the country from June to September was 94 percent of the long-term average, the lowest since 2018, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said in a statement.
The IMD had expected a rainfall deficit of 4 percent for this season, assuming a limited impact of El Nino.
El Nino is a warming of Pacific Ocean waters that is typically associated with drier conditions in the Indian subcontinent.
The monsoon was uneven, with June rain being 9 percent below average due to the delay in the arrival of rain, but July rain recovered to 13 percent above average.
