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FARMING

India fears rain gods may play truant

AFP, New Delhi
Monsoon rains have been lashing parts of India in recent days but for farmers anxiously scanning the skies, there are fears the rain gods may deliver too little, too late.
The southwest monsoon sweeps the subcontinent from June to September and is called an "economic lifeline" in India, one of the world's top producers of rice, wheat and sugar, where just 40 percent of arable land is irrigated.
Rains in June were the scantiest in 83 years. The monsoons have picked up and the so-called "rain deficit" or shortfall for the period now is just 19 percent from 45 percent in June.
But there is worry that even with the rains building momentum, the damage has already been done and crops will suffer.
For India's 235 millions farmers, many of them small landholders barely scraping a living, a bad monsoon can mean financial disaster, wiping out livelihoods.
"The monsoon this year has been weak and erratic in its progress and distribution, resulting in the late sowing of crops," Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar told parliament late last week.
Normally, monsoon sowing begins in June and finishes in late July with the harvest starting in September. But many fields that normally at this time of year are a brilliant, iridescent green are barren and parched.
In particular, the northwestern grainbelt states of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana could be hit by the rain shortfall, Pawar said. Uttar Pradesh is also the nation's biggest sugar-producing state.
The patchy monsoon means there has been no sowing, especially of rice, in over 25 percent of farmland, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research said.
The weather office, whose record at forecasting is uneven, has predicted the rains will be 93 percent of the long-term average.
"It is certainly too early to say the monsoon has failed. We have to see what it is like in August," said senior government economic policy advisor Montek Singh Ahluwallia.
The government, which has halted wheat and rice* exports, is sitting on bulging grain storehouses thanks to four years of good monsoons so India has enough to feed its nearly 1.2 billion population -- even with a lower harvest.
The winter wheat crop harvest for 2009 is nearly complete with output estimated at 77.6 million tonnes, just shy of last year's record 78.4 million tonnes, but comfortably above the five-year
average of 72.8 million tonnes.
But a plentiful monsoon is needed to ensure good moisture conditions for the next winter wheat crop, which is sown in November and harvested in March.
And the fallout from a failed monsoon hits not only crops but the wider economy. The farm sector's contribution to India's gross domestic product has slipped to just 16.6 percent from around 50 percent in the 1950s.
But it is still crucial as it supports about 60 percent of the population who live in the countryside and fuel consumer demand for everything from TVs and refrigerators, to motorcycles and gold.
And increasingly manufacturers and service providers are looking to rural areas to boost profits as urban markets become saturated.
A bad monsoon would oblige the government to increase payouts to cash-strapped farmers, swelling its ballooning deficit, and further slow an economy already hit by the global recession.
Premier Manmohan Singh has been banking on a rise in farm output to propel economic expansion and to honour campaign promises to bring greater rural prosperity.
The erratic monsoon could knock at least one percentage point off growth, economists say.
"Our base case of GDP growth
of 6.8 percent in fiscal year 2010 could moderate to 5.8 percent or in a worse case to 5.2 percent levels, depending on the extent of damage," Citi economist Anushka Shah said.
The most recent bad monsoon was in 2002 when GDP growth slipped to four percent for the fiscal year from six percent the previous year. And in a severe drought in 1979, the economy contracted by over five percent.
But even though the monsoon has been fickle, the rains have been no less deadly when they have arrived, killing 472 people so far this season in flooding and mudslides, according to the disaster management office.