​Missed call: On India and the southwest monsoon

The southwest monsoon reached Kerala on June 4 , three days past its normal date and four days behind the India Meteorological Department’s own forecast. This is the first time since 2015 that the agency has misjudged the onset beyond its margin of error. A late arrival , in itself, is no calamity. The date on which the rains touch the Kerala coast has little statistical bearing on how much falls over the four months that follow. Many times in the past, the monsoon has begun early and failed, and also begun late and recovered. It is what the monsoon has in store over the next four months that is unsettling. The India Meteorological Department has pegged seasonal rainfall at 90% of the long-period average, with a 60% probability of an outright deficient year — its most pessimistic pre-season call in a decade. Only the northeast is expected to see normal rain; the northwest, central India, the peninsula and the monsoon core zone that waters most of the country’s rain-fed farmland are all forecast to fall short . As monsoon watchers have often cautioned, it is the distribution — the sudden long dry spells, sown crops that then face the danger of being unwatered — that matters. Every monsoon is consequential for India. This one is exceptionally so, because it arrives atop an input crisis. The West Asia conflict and the disruption at the Strait of Hormuz earlier this year throttled energy supply and fertilizer production. History offers little comfort. Around 60% of El Niño years since 1951 have brought deficient or below-normal rains; 2002, 2009 were the severest droughts of the century with significant shortfalls in 2014 and 2015. With El Niño now near-certain through the heart of the season, the government must not count on a late, redeeming swing of the Indian Ocean Dipole. That means activating the Agriculture Ministry, Jal Shakti and Consumer Affairs Ministries on a war footing along with the disaster management authorities, with advisories steering farmers toward short-duration pulses, oilseeds and millets over thirsty paddy. Disciplined groundwater and reservoir management are necessary and crop insurance and relief provisioning must be readied. India will also have to brave more days of severe heat , which a parched landscape will only sharpen. The government as recently as last week claimed to deliver a record kharif production. While hoping for the best, it must prepare for the worst. A weak monsoon would fall on a farm economy whose nutrients and fuel are both already scarce and dear.