Compensatory Production Plan for Rabi 2014. CRIDA Technical Bulletin

Abstract

The south west monsoon accounts for nearly 75% of the annual rainfall that occurs during the four month period of June to September. Timely onset and good distribution of rainfall are critical for achieving optimum crop yields during kharif season. Any deviation from normal monsoon pattern affects crop production, fodder availability to livestock and causes huge losses to farmers. Adequate rainfall during south-west monsoon not only supports production of major commodities like nutritious cereals, oilseeds and pulses but also determines the success of rabi crops through carryover of suffi cient moisture in the soil profi le (NRAA, 2013). Drought is the most common weather aberration and is experienced by one part or the other in India. In the last 12 years, large tracts in the country experienced erratic monsoon rainfall leading to widespread drought during 2002, 2009 and 2012. The advancement of monsoon in 2012 witnessed intermittent delays and the coverage over the entire country by the monsoon could happen only by 15th August. In 2009, despite early onset of monsoon and its coverage over the entire country by 15th July, the year recorded the lowest mean annual rainfall of less than 700 mm. In 2012, the onset of monsoon was delayed up to 2 weeks with subsequent slow progress towards north-west with frequent breaks leading to defi cit rainfall situation till end of July and late withdrawal of monsoon by three weeks in September. In all these three drought / defi cit rainfall years, negative departures during the south west monsoon period affected kharif agricultural production (Venkateswarlu et al., 2011). The probability of the monsoon being erratic is 40% of the time which implies that in 4 out of 10 years there is likelihood of adverse impact on crop production in the absence of appropriate strategy to deal with such eventualities. Monsoon failures result in drought which has serious implications for small and marginal farmers and livelihoods of the rural poor. Rainfed areas constitute nearly 58% of the net cultivated area, account for 40% of the country’s food production, support 40% of human and 60% of the livestock population. These areas are the most vulnerable to monsoon failures. The frequency of defi cient rainfall (75% of normal or less) is once in 5 years in West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Konkan, Bihar and Odisha; once in 4 years in south interior Karnataka, eastern Uttar Pradesh and Vidarbha; once in 3 years in Gujarat, east Rajasthan and western Uttar Pradesh; once in 2.5 years in Tamil Nadu, J & K and Telangana; and once in 2 years in West Rajasthan. In order to understand the impact of deviations in rainfall during the monsoon period (June to September) on productivity of crops, the latter was regressed on the deviations in monthly rainfall and time trend using the data for the period 1976-2010 using all India on pruduction and productivity. The analysis showed that rainfall during July was more critical to the productivity of crops. A one per cent increase over normal in the rainfall during July was found to increase productivity of pearlmillet by about 2.25 kg/ha.