Monsoon to arrive on May 31; to boost crop output, ease farmers' woes

India's monsoon is forecast to hit the Kerala coast in the southwest on May 31, the state-run weather office said on Wednesday, offering relief to farmers after below average rainfall last year.

The monsoon, the lifeblood of the country's $3.5 trillion economy, delivers nearly 70 per cent of the rain that India needs to water farms and recharge reservoirs and aquifers. Nearly half of India's farmland, without any irrigation cover, depends on the annual June-September rains to grow a number of crops.

Summer rains usually begin to lash Kerala state around June 1 and spread across the whole country by mid-July, triggering the planting of crops such as rice, corn, cotton, soybeans and sugarcane.

The monsoon onset over Kerala is likely to be on May 31, with a model error of plus/minus four days, the India Meteorological Department said.

Last year, monsoon rains reached the coast of Kerala on June 8, the latest arrival in four years.

After a weak start, overall monsoon rains were 6 per cent below average in 2023, the lowest since 2018 as the El Nino weather pattern delivered the driest August in more than a century.

El Nino is a warming of Pacific waters that is typically accompanied by drier conditions over the Indian subcontinent.

As El Nino gives way to La Nina - characterised by unusually cold temperatures in the Pacific Ocean - India's weather office has forecast rainfall of 106 per cent of the long-term average.

The India Meteorological Department defines average rainfall as between 96 per cent and 104 per cent of a 50-year average of 87 cm (35 inches) for the four-month season.

Plentiful monsoon rains could help farmers harvest bumper crops and prompt the government to consider easing rice export curbs, including on widely consumed non-basmati white rice over the last year and broken rice since 2022.

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