[Ibrattnofich]

Though the progress of the monsoon so far has been quite satisfactory, there was a slight deterioration in the last week of July and the concern is that the acreage particularly under pulses and coarse grains has so far been lower than last year.

The sown area under pulses, coarse cereals and rice decreased by 20.6 per cent, 11.5 per cent and 8.8 per cent respectively as compared to the same period last year. These are the

items that added to inflation last year, though the prices of pulses had cooled down given the focus on increasing the cultivation of pulses.
The area under soyabean, jute and sugar have surpassed last year’s.

However, says CARE Ratings in its monsoon update, there is still hope for improvement as the coverage so far is around 60 per cent of normal with still around 40 per cent left to be brought under cultivation in the next two months.

Mr Madan Sabnavis, economist and research head at CARE said that India’s food buffer is only in rice and wheat and not in pulses, where higher production in a year only means fewer imports.

Coarse cereals and pulses seem to be under pressure this year and output shortfalls will exert pressure on food inflation.

The RBI had also warned in its monetary policy on Tuesday that “spatial distribution of the monsoon indicates possible pressure on yields of coarse grains, pulses oilseeds and cotton.“
Mr Kashyap Jhaveri of Emkay Research in his report on the South West monsoon said: “This is for the first time that rainfall in rain dependent areas has gone below normal in this season so far. Moreover rainfall in key agriculture states like Gujarat and Maharashtra moderated again after showing good improvement in the earlier two weeks.“