New Delhi, Apr 30 (Mayank Nigam) Vulnerability of agriculture to monsoon shock has reduced, India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra) said on Friday. According to the rating agency, Indian agriculture towards adverse weather shocks (deficient rainfall) has undoubtedly increased over the years, owing to increased irrigation intensity (gross irrigated area as a percentage of gross cropped area). However, the ability of the sector to absorb the shock varies across states is linked to the overall area under irrigation, it said. “At the all-India level, the area under irrigation was 54.32% in FY19 compared with 41.7% in FY97. As a result, the correlation between the kharif food grain output and monsoon rains (June-September) was 0.4 over FY13-FY21 compared with 0.6 and 0.8 during FY97-FY04 and FY05-FY12, respectively. However, the correlation varies across regions with both – the area sown and the food grain output,” it said.
A glance at the region-wise correlation for the entire period during FY97-FY21 or any truncated period in between suggests that south peninsular India is more vulnerable to a shortfall in monsoon rains than any other region in terms of both – the area sown and the food grain output, the agency said. “Interestingly, central India (CI), which was more vulnerable during FY05-FY12, became less susceptible to monsoon rainfall during FY13-FY21.
One of the probable reasons could be the expansion of irrigated area in this region. While the irrigated area in Madya Pradesh increased to 61.6% in FY19 from 40.1% in FY05, during the same period irrigated area increased to 33.0% in Rajasthan and 51.0% in Gujarat from 23.4% and 33.0%, respectively,” the agency said. It noted that the negative correlation between monsoon rainfall and kharif acreage/output showed the adverse impact of heavy rainfall, which often leads to floods and destruction of crops. “While this situation could arise in any part of the country, it was pronounced in northeast India (NEI) with respect to the output during FY97-FY04 and in CI with respect to the area during FY13-FY21,” it said. Ind-Ra said another factor that has lessened the adverse impact of the deficient monsoon on India’s agriculture is the increase in the rabi crop output. “Historically, agriculture production used to be higher in the kharif season than in the rabi season. However, rabi food grain output/production over the past several years has been mostly either at par or higher (consistently during FY18 to FY22) than kharif production,” it said.