Make it count

A good monsoon is not enough to redress farm distress

The rainfall in the first half of the four-month monsoon season (June to September) has been fairly satisfactory despite the incidence of drought in parts of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala as well as floods in pockets of Gujarat, Rajasthan, West Bengal and Assam. The cumulative rainfall in the country has been about 2 per cent above the long period average, with as much as 80 per cent area receiving normal or above normal precipitation. As a result, there is every possibility that the total area under cultivation will be higher than last year. The prospects of kharif output breaking