Indian rainfall at 44-year high in August

Deepika Thapliyal

09-Sep-2020

LONDON (ICIS) – In India, rainfall during August came in at a 44-year high, at 27% above the Long Period Average (LPA) or 50-year average, according to state-run India Meteorological Department (IMD).

This comes after rains were 10% below average in July.

During the southwest monsoon season so far (1 June-2 September), rainfall has been 9% above the LPA, said IMD. During 1 June-31 August, rainfall was 10% above average.

Only five regions in the country – Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh – witnessed deficient rainfall while all other states saw normal to excess rains.

For the entire season (June to September), the weather agency previously forecast ‘normal’ rains at 96-104% of LPA.

Indian farmers have sown more crops this season because of the favourable monsoon and several government initiatives. More workers have also returned home from cities to their small farmlands because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Planting for the kharif season is largely complete with 109.5m hectares sown by 4 September, up 6% from 103m last year, according to the Department of Agriculture.

Fertilizer demand has increased during kharif with urea sales in April-August at 15.5m tonnes, up 21% from 12.8m tonnes in April-August 2019.

Agriculture makes up about 15% of the Indian economy and more than one-half of the country’s farmlands depend on the southwest monsoon for irrigation.

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