Farm growth at 2-year low of 1.4%

Agriculture growth dropped to 1.4 per cent, a two-year low, in the fourth quarter of 2012-13 due to a drop in kharif foodgrain production as well as rabi wheat output.

Wheat is the largest foodgrain grown during the rabi season, sowing for which starts around October-November and the crop is harvested around February-March. On a year-on-year basis, the growth of agriculture and allied activities, which included forestry and fishing, declined to 1.9 per cent, against 3.6 per cent in 2011-12. This is much below the targeted 12th five-year Plan (2012-13 to 2016-17) average annual growth rate of 4 per cent. Experts ascribed the fall in kharif production to the uneven southwest monsoon in 2012-13. While there was a chance of a strong recovery during the rabi season, it did not happen due to the estimated fall in wheat production.

"Less than even rains during 2012 not only impacted the kharif production, but it seems its effect lingered on to the rabi season as well, which is the reason why wheat output now seems less than the official estimate," Ramesh Chand, director, National Centre for Agricultural Economics and Policy Research, told Business Standard.

According to the third advanced estimate of foodgrains production, wheat output in 2012-13 season (June to July) is expected to be 93.6 million tonnes, just 1.34 per cent less than last year's record production. However, experts say it should be much lower than that as arrivals in mandis have thinned faster than expected and procurement by state-agencies is expected to be 75 per cent less than the initial target of 44 million tonnes.

According to the official estimate, production of kharif foodgrains fell to 128.23 million tonnes, almost 2.31 per cent less than the previous year because of uneven rains. The southwest monsoon, which started on a brisk note in 2012, went for a long-break in between, before staging some recovery, leading to below normal overall rains.

The total precipitation in 2012 was almost 92 per cent of long period average (LPA). Rains between 90 per cent and 94 per cent of LPA are considered below normal. However, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted that rains would be normal in 2013.