economy · 2026-10-02
Weak rains threaten rural incomes and food prices
Photo: Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington / flickr (BY-SA 2.0)
India's monsoon ended with 13% less rain than normal, hurting crops in many areas. That could cut farmers' earnings and push up food prices, making staples harder to afford.
Why were monsoons uneven this year?
The uneven pattern comes from El Niño, the warming of Pacific sea surface waters that shifts atmospheric circulation and weakens the Indian summer monsoon. India gets 75% of its yearly rain from June to September, and historically at least half of El Niño events have brought monsoon droughts. This year northern India stayed near normal while eastern regions and the southern peninsula saw 25% deficits, hitting rain-fed farming hardest.
Why plant when rain might fail?
Leaving land unplanted guarantees no harvest and no income. For a subsistence farmer, sowing offers the only chance of a crop, even if rain may fail. So they sow anyway, and shift to drought-hardier crops like pulses and coarse cereals, which is where the damage shows up.
How does damage show up months later?
The damage shows up months later in the rabi harvest, crops grown in winter that rely on water stored in reservoirs from the monsoon. In 2014, rice output fell only 1%, but wheat output dropped 9.7% because reservoirs stayed low, hitting the later season.
Why can't sowing data show distress?
Sowing data can't show distress because most Indian farmers are smallholders who must sow regardless of rain. Leaving land fallow means no harvest and no income, so they plant even in poor conditions. The real damage appears later, in cropping-pattern changes and crop yields, not in sowing coverage.
Why does 13% hide the real damage?
Because a national average hides where the rain fell. East India and the southern peninsula got 25% less rain than normal; central India only 3% less. Those dry regions, Assam at -40%, Rayalaseema at -40%, interior Karnataka at -31%, depend on rain, not irrigation, so crops there fail even when the national figure looks tolerable.
Why did 2014 output rise when rain fell?
Because the damage showed up in winter crops, not the summer rice harvest. Rice output dipped just 1%, but wheat fell 9.7%. Agricultural production overall dropped 4.5%. The value-added measure rose because it counts income, which better captured prices, not just volumes.
Is this El Niño or climate change?
The immediate trigger is El Niño, the warming of Pacific sea surface temperatures, which has historically caused droughts in at least half of the instances affecting India's monsoon. However, climate change intensifies it: oceans absorb about 93% of global warming's heat, making El Niños stronger, and models project their rainfall impacts will increase.
Why does a rain deficit hurt some regions more than others?
Because roughly half of India's farmland still depends on rainfall rather than irrigation. Rain-fed areas like Bihar, Assam, and interior Karnataka lack canals or wells to fall back on, so deficient monsoon rain directly reduces soil moisture and crop yields. Irrigated northwest India, by contrast, barely notices a 6% deficit. The result: identical national rainfall figures produce very different regional outcomes.
Source: livemint.com