S&T, agriculture ministries hold the key to exploiting a good monsoon to augment food production For a government battling high food prices and inflationary expectations, the news that the country is set to witness another good monsoon this year must have been sweet music indeed. The monsoon has been quantified to be 99 per cent of the long period average or 'near normal' by the Indian Meteorological Department (imd). If the prediction turns out to be true, the country would have normal monsoon for the fifth year in succession. Yet, the last government in part, and the current government in full, have failed to leverage the bounty. Both governments did not initiate any major schemes to drought-proof agriculture, which hinges critically on the monsoon. The importance of drought-proofing should have been obvious, considering that food grain output had slumped by over 13 per cent in 2002-03, as a result of the severe drought that swept through almost the entire country that year. The increased emphasis on water harvesting notwithstanding, the reduced availability of water is emerging as a major social and economic crisis. The answer lies in a range of activities from the revival of ponds and tanks to the setting up of modern irrigation systems. Subsidies for drip and sprinkler irrigation need to be stepped up. Fodder cultivation, crop planning according to the water needs and availability and the emphasis on the local breed of cattle (and improving its productivity, rather than importing foreign breeds) need to be encouraged. Farmers in the rainfed areas also need to be insured against drought. Some experts believe that sooner or later a line will have to be drawn in regard to the unprecedented addition of new sugar mills sanctioned by successive governments. Sugarcane requires good fertile and irrigated land for cultivation and its growth is at the cost of staple foods like wheat and rice. With the per hectare productivity of food grains on the decline in the frontline agricultural states, large-scale diversion of good fertile land to sugarcane makes for good profit booking, but faulty long-term economics. The monsoon normally breaks over Kerala in the first week of June, which is less than a month away, and later spreads across the country. Its timely onset and satisfactory progress can dampen inflationary trends, especially those relating to food as supplies of kharif crops like rice, cereals, pulses and oil seeds surge by September. Since the government has a lot at stake in taming inflation, it should get cracking on a strategy, which ensures that the farm output during the kharif season is maximised and farmers get the full benefits of the monsoon. In many areas, there is pre-monsoon sowing and farmers need to get inputs. The Union ministry for agriculture needs to co-ordinate with the state governments to ensure adequate availability of seeds, fertilisers and agrochemicals. The dynamics of the food market all over the world have changed. It is a seller's market now. Every effort thus needs to be made to see that a near self-sufficiency in food production is achieved. There are some other issues that need to be addressed as well. The imd forecasts are for the June-September season. The imd updates the forecast in June. Separate forecasts for the July rainfall over the country as a whole and the seasonal rainfall over four geographical seasons is also issued. But that should not be the end of the story. The imd now needs to add value to its services by making forecasts of temporal and spatial distribution on rain. This is essential, as any slip-up in the actual performance of the monsoon in various regions can impact farm growth. Science and technology minister Kapil Sibal should galvanise the imd on this front. His colleague and the agriculture minister, Sharad Pawar, can set up a dedicated team of experts that will make contingency plans to manage such weather aberrations. That appears to be one step forward, as Indian agriculture today continues to be woefully dependant on the monsoon. The Eleventh Plan projections are not too encouraging. Grain is expected to grow at 2.5 per cent and oil seeds at 4 per cent. Hence, the management of the monsoon (apart from the longer term issues of increaing productivity) becomes critical. A good monsoon cannot simply be frittered away, as it is needed to fire rural demand as much as augment food production in these inflationary times.