The kharif season’s foodgrain output is expected to fall to a five-year low to 120.27 million tonnes, a fall of about nine million tonnes (mt) for the same period last year, due to the uneven southwest monsoon in the first part of the season.Even, according to an expectation, it will have adverse repercussions on rabi crops as well, hindering agriculture growth in the remaining three quarters of the current fiscal.
The biggest impact of the erratic rain is expected to be on coarse cereals, pulses and groundnuts. Production of rice, the bulk grain grown this season, is estimated to be 88.02 mt, 4 per cent less than last year’s.Coarse cereal production is expected at 27.05 mt as against 31.25 mt in 2013-14, down 13.4 per cent. Production of pulses is expected to be 5.2 mt as against 6.02 mt last year. Oilseeds is expected to be 19.66 mt, down from 22.4 mt.The biggest fall in oilseeds has been in groundnuts. Production is estimated at 5.02 mt, almost 36 per cent less than last year’s kharif.
