'Moderate droughts rise, but impact on farming down'

Spread of irrigation, rise in drought-tolerant seeds have come as saviour, says study

The southwest monsoon might have made a good start, but its future looks bleak, with many models predicting a let up in showers around the first week of July. The picture for north-west India, the country's premier paddy-producing region, looks gloomier with most weather forecasts predicting below-normal rains in the region this year. However, how far will a less-than-normal monsoon impact India's foodgrain production, is a matter of debate.

A policy brief by the Indian Council for Agricultural Research's National Institute of Agriculture Economics and Policy Research (NIAP), released a few months ago, showed the frequency of severe droughts has gone down over time, while that of moderate droughts has risen. The mean value of drought index fell from 0.97 during 1969-1987 to 0.57 during 1988-2005. The drop has been mainly due to a decline in severe droughts in India - from 21 per cent to nine per cent - while moderate droughts rose from 77 per cent to 88 per cent. In other words, India faces more frequent droughts, while there are less events of severe droughts, according to the study. Not only has the frequency of severe droughts declined, the overall impact of southwest monsoon on kharif foodgrain production has diminished.

A recent report by India Ratings showed the correlation between the kharif food grain output and the June-September monsoon rains declined to 0.3 from 2004-05 to 2013-14, compared with 0.6 from 1996-97 to 2003-04, which shows the increased resilience of Indian agriculture to absorb deficiency in monsoon rainfall.

The NIAP study, too, showed that yield loss to rice, which is the biggest foodgrain grown during the kharif season, declined considerably from the 16.8 per cent between 1967 and 1988 to 8.1 per cent between 1988 and 2005.

Thus, not only has the frequency of severe droughts gone down from 1969, while that of moderate droughts increased, their impact on final yields of rice has also come down.

The results of the analysis were also tested for robustness using panel regressions and other agronomic and management practices to see whether insect attack and diseases had an impact on the loss, but the results were unchanged.

In 2015, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) in its second forecast earlier this month said rains this year could be deficient at

88 per cent of the long period average (LPA), which is the average rainfall the country received from 1951 to 2001 and is estimated at 89 centimetres.

The NIAP study done by Pratap S Birthal, Digvijay S Negi, Md Tajuddin Khan and Shaily Agarwal titled "Is Indian Agriculture Becoming Resilient to Droughts?: Evidence From Rice Production", constructed the drought index using the mean monthly temperature and cumulative rainfall during the June to September period starting from 1967-70 to 2005-06.

The index ranges from zero to eight; zero implying rainfall being above normal and temperature being below normal. "The index is skewed towards left, indicating most drought events during this period were not severe. The incidence of severe droughts, say, of drought index of three or more, was rare," the report showed.

Between 2001 and 2014, India suffered four years of deficient rainfall, where the quantum was less than 90 per cent of LPA. The drought years were 2002, 2004, 2009 and 2014, when the total rainfall was less than 90 per cent of the LPA.

The NIAP study also analysed the reasons for increased resilience of Indian farming. It shows the increase in irrigated area and spread of drought-tolerant rice varieties across the country, mainly in rainfed areas, have vastly contributed to this.

"Between 1988 to 2010 on average 3.4 rice varieties were released annually for rainfed uplands and 4.4 for rainfed shallow lands, representing an increase of 193 per cent and 141 per cent over those released during 1969 to 1987," the study said.