Razor’s edge: On the progress of the southwest monsoon

The southwest monsoon deficit nationwide has increased from 35% to 43%; the winds’ northward advance was stalled near Mumbai; and both the U.S. NOAA and the India Meteorological Department (IMD) expect a moderate-to-strong El Niño this year. The El Niño suppresses the vertical air movement needed for rainclouds to form while a warming Pacific is weakening the trade winds that bring moisture to the subcontinent. The Madden-Julian Oscillation is also in an unfavourable phase and the Indian Ocean Dipole currently cannot offer a buffer. Further, while northwest India has received 5% more rain than normal, central India and the northeast face deficits of 63% and 43%, respectively. But with two-thirds of the seasonal rainfall historically arriving in July and August, the monsoon may still recover and salvage the season. Together with reservoir storage at 30.4% of capacity, compared with 25.1% during previous El Niño years, there is no reason for alarm yet. However, the effects for agriculture are more concerning. The Agriculture Ministry has already prioritised 111 districts out of 315 vulnerable ones based on their irrigation coverage. Extreme heat has been reducing farm labour productivity. High heat and rain shortfall have sown anxiety over the cardamom harvest in Idukki, a fate that bodes ill for other plantation crops in the Western Ghats.

Both the kharif sowing window for rice, pulses, and oilseeds and the availability of fertilizers could come under pressure, the latter due to Chinese export curbs and tensions in West Asia, heightening the risks of lower soil moisture and higher input stress. Retail food inflation was 4.2% in April; further deficits will especially threaten vegetables and pulses, complicating the monetary policy. The fundamental problem is the way India has built its rural economy around the assumption of reliable rainfall delivery. No adaptation strategy can indefinitely outpace unchecked warming, so limiting future warming should amount to reducing the extent of exposure. The ideal sustainable strategies are to switch from rain-centric to water-centric organisation, reduce dependence on water-intensive crops, and improve resilience. Pathways for the first two have already been outlined. On the last, while the Agriculture Ministry’s extant contingency plans reflect the need for adjustable sowing windows and alternative seed varieties, the principal variable remains implementation at scale. Second, the government should consider a new authority to coordinate inter-State water use and cropping changes based on extended El Niño forecasts, eliminating the cropping governance currently fragmented between the Agriculture and Jal Shakti Ministries, and the IMD.