Monsoon 2020: After Covid-19 & Locust Attacks Excessive Monsoon is the Last Thing Farmers Want to See

With the monsoon having reached the central parts of the country, there is a sigh of relief that it will provide comfort from the scorching heat that the country is facing. But for the farmers, it is not at all good as they fear that short burst of excess rainfall will do more harm to their crops.

Heavy Rains in Konkan region, Karnataka and Mumbai (where one person was killed) are a cause of worry for the Indian Agriculture. Anurag, a farmer from Sonbhadra District says” Less Rainfall is harmful, More Rainfall is harmful, but a normal rainfall with shorts bursts of excessive rainfall is also harmful, we have been hearing in the news that the monsoon will be good but it is also important that the rainfall pattern remains evenly distributed according to the cropping pattern”

His fear is justified as the farmers are banking hard on successful harvesting of crops after the lockdown had affected their earnings on the rabi crops. Rahul Yadav, a farmer from Rewari, Haryana said” We know that crop failure is an issue that we face and an excess rainfall would be disastrous for us but somehow we would move forward but this year it is different we are already suffering losses due to the lockdown and a part of our crops were also damaged due to the locust attacks so we are in a very bad situation and we need the government to come up with a plan to save the farmers.”

The fear is not based on assumptions but experience as just last year farmers in Madhya Pradesh were hard hit by the excess monsoon. This had also led to the demand of analysing weather conditions on a local basis rather than relying on IMD to give a more accurate picture of the weather scenario. Last year despite initial predictions that the country would experience 96% of the total Long-period Average (LPA), the monsoon ended with 110 % of the LPA.

The government must come up with a plan to counter this and policy must be devised at the earliest because the Indian Farmers have suffered many blows this year and further losses will not only hit the farmers hard but will also have disastrous impacts on the whole Agricultural sector.