Deficient monsoon puts 4 states, 5 crops at highest risk: Crisil Research

As many as four states, which contribute more than one-third of total foodgrain output, and five crops totals to one-fourth of total output are most hurt by deficient rains , a rating agency said on Wednesday.

As per CRISIL's deficient rainfall impact parameter (DRIP), four states of Bihar, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh will be hurt most by deficient rains and these states contribute 34 per cent of total foodgrain production in India.

Crops of jowar, soyabean, tur, maize and cotton are the most hit by deficient monsoon, and of these four food crops, besides cotton, contribute 26 per cent of the total foodgrain and oilseed output.

"..importance of monsoon, and...agriculture, is magnified because the non-farm part of the Indian economy has been struggling, as underscored by poor investment and manufacturing activity," Crisil Research said in a release.

"If monsoon ends up being deficient overall this fiscal, too, it would mark two failures in a row, which will be harder to deal with," it said.

Meanwhile, Crisil maintained its overall GDP growth forecast of 7.4 per cent for fiscal 2016 with agriculture growing at a sub-trend rate of 1.5 per cent on a weak base of last fiscal.

The impact of deficient rainfall is getting increasingly amplified because holistic efforts to reduce structural vulnerabilities are lacking, Crisil Chief Economist Dharmakirti Joshi said.

"We believe investing in Indian agriculture's future has become economically and politically critical. The government needs to change the templates, and quickly so," Joshi added.

The report also pointed input and output price movements have been quite unfavorable to the farming community.

"The last few years have seen a sharp rise in wages and other input costs, while the increase in output prices was restrained, which reduced cultivation income and hit profit," it added.

According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD, rainfall deficit has widened to 10 per cent and is projected to rise to 12 per cent by the end of monsoon season next month.