Farmers Revise Sowing, Cropping Patterns To Overcome Weak Monsoon

NEW DELHI: Indian farmers are revising their sowing strategy and cropping patterns as they look to make the most of the rain they’ll get during the June-September monsoon season.

The state-run India Meteorological Department and private forecasters such as Skymet have indicated that rain could be deficient, with some probability of a drought. Farmers are hoping to be prepared for such an eventuality.

To begin with, some are looking to cultivate crops that will require less water such as cotton, guar, jowar, pulses, maize and soyabean. Others are opting for short-duration crops such as basmati rather than paddy. Sales of drought-tolerant seed varieties could also see a surge.

Availability of water for irrigation is a substantial challenge because of poor infrastructure in a country where two-thirds of the arable land is rain fed. More than 42% of the area under paddy, which accounts for over 70% of the kharif crop in the country, is rainfed across Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal.

Nand Kishore Singh of Tariyani village in the Jaunpur district of Uttar Pradesh may sow black gram (urad) this year rather than paddy if the season is dry. “We are dependent on monsoon rains and it will be unviable to get a crop if rains are weak and unevenly spread,” he said.

According to rough estimates, 5,000 litres of water is needed for producing 1 kg of paddy whereas 1 kg of basmati requires 400-500 litre of water.

KVS Sandhu, a vegetable grower in Patiala, Punjab, will be allocating 25 acres of land on his farm for basmati this year.

“Growing paddy could pose a problem if rains are unevenly distributed across the four months and hence I will go for basmati sowing for the first time,” said Sandhu, who’s a former bureaucrat. The 70-day crop will need less water than the 90-110-day paddy crop, he said.

Sandhu, a leading vegetable exporter, has already sown ladies’ fingers to export to the European Union and the Middle East.

Most farmers across north India, after harvesting wheat in March, went in for maize, green gram (moong) and even vegetables to earn extra. They will now opt for basmati in July.

Acreage of India’s largest vegetable export, guar, could also increase as companies begin distributing free seeds to farmers.

Maganbhai Patel, a cotton and groundnut farmer in Gujarat who has 30 acres of land, has been approached by traders and companies to sow guar this year. “We haven’t ever sown guar in our area. The crop doesn’t require any water or fertilizer and it will be a net profit for me even if I get Rs 7,500 per quintal by the end of the harvest,” he said. Guar seed is currently being quoted at Rs 4,500-5,000 a quintal in the Gujarat market.

In 2012, weak rains across western India led to a huge loss for cotton and groundnut farmers as wells ran dried. Patel, who heads Gujarat’s Bharatiya Kisan Sangh, feels that farmers will continue to sow the traditional groundnut, castor and cotton crops.

“We are not businessmen and will do what best we know. From past experience of poor rains, farmers will go for short-range variety of cotton. If the government subsidises, we may even sow drought-variety seeds,” he said.

The Centre and state governments have been issuing information on the possibility of a below-normal southwest monsoon and what farmer could sow to ensure remunerative returns.

“We have been told that this year there would be low rainfall so we have decided to sow soyabean and jowar as these crops need less water than other crops like sugar cane or vegetable plants,” said Singangoud Patil, a small farmer in Kardiguddi village in Belgaum, Karnataka.

“Generally we sow sugarcane but this year we might go with cotton or maize. We have already suffered huge losses due to abnormal rainfall early this year, so don’t want to take risk,” said Manjunath Chikkareddy, who owns 20 acres of land at Hooli in Belgaum.