India: After a lull, India’s monsoon splashes entire country

• India’s monsoon has splashed back into life after a lull, covering the entire country including the capital New Delhi and lifting the threat of a slowdown in planting crucial summer crops such as rice, cane, corn, cotton and soybean.
• The monsoon covered the entire country on 12 Jul 21, including major grain and oilseed regions, five days later than usual, said the state-run India Meteorological Department (IMD).
• After lashing the southernmost Kerala coast on 3 Jun 21, the monsoon spread to two-thirds of India by the end of the first half of the month, nearly 15 days earlier than normal. As a result, rains were above average during the first three weeks of Jun 21, before the monsoon tapered off.
• While overall monsoon rains were still above average in Jun 21, they turned below average in Jul 21, raising concern about delays in planting of crops in a sprawling country where two-thirds of its 1.3 billion people inhabit the countryside and farming sustains nearly half of the population.
• The IMD defines average, or normal, rainfall as between 96% and 104% of a 50-year average of 88 cm for the entire season.
• According to the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare, crop planting fell 10.43% to 49.9 million hectares (123 million acres) as monsoon rains turned patchy.

External Link : https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/after-lull-indias-monsoon-splashes-entire-country-easing-crop-concerns-2021-07-13/