Turn potential double-whammy of rain and fertiliser shortfall into an opportunity

Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2026 00:40:02 +0000 Extracted Body: India’s farm sector grew by 4.2 per cent in 2024-25 and 3.2 per cent in 2025-26 on the back of two good monsoon years. Rainfall for the country as a whole was 104 per cent of its long period average (LPA) in 2024 and 110 per cent in 2025, with the southwest monsoon season (June-September) alone registering nearly 8 per cent surplus precipitation in both years. This year, the prognosis isn’t great due to an El Niño, expected to return after a strong event from around June 2023 to April 2024. Global models indicate a weak-to-moderate El Niño developing in the current monsoon season. The India Meteorological Department has already forecast a below-normal monsoon, with overall rainfall at 90 per cent of LPA for the four-month season. But the hit to agriculture may not come in the kharif crop season, whose plantings have just about commenced and will pick up as the monsoon advances. The real impact might be during the rabi (winter-spring) season, with strong-to-very strong El Niño conditions projected to emerge through November-January. El Niño is known to not only suppress the monsoon rainfall but also lead to warmer and shorter winters in India. If its intensity is relatively mild during the monsoon months and peaks after November, the rabi crops are the ones that will bear the brunt. The same goes for fertilisers, where the stocks seem reasonably comfortable to meet the requirements of the kharif season. The effects of the supply shock from the ongoing West Asia conflict and blockade of the Strait of Hormuz may be felt only in rabi. This applies even to food inflation, which has not spiralled so far (unlike energy, metals or industrial raw materials), thanks to record 2025-26 crop production levels both in India and globally. India should turn the potential double whammy of rain and fertiliser shortfalls into an opportunity. The country imported an all-time-high 16.9 million tonnes (mt) of vegetable oils in 2025-26 and 7.3 mt of pulses the previous fiscal. The Narendra Modi government must work towards making 2026 India’s year of millets, pulses and oilseeds, which also consume less water and fertilisers — especially urea (nitrogen) — than rice, wheat or sugarcane. Indian farmers respond well to price signals. They will grow these crops once assured of minimum support prices (MSP), either through direct government procurement or payment of difference over open market rates. Such MSP assurance should, however, be conditional upon cost/market-driven pricing of water and fertilisers, which will promote efficient use of these scarce resources.