{"id":29917,"date":"2018-10-26T13:04:06","date_gmt":"2018-10-26T07:34:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=29917"},"modified":"2018-10-26T13:04:06","modified_gmt":"2018-10-26T07:34:06","slug":"chasing-the-monsoon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/chasing-the-monsoon\/","title":{"rendered":"Chasing the monsoon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/todays-paper\/tp-opinion\/chasing-the-monsoon\/article23579039.ece\"><strong>Chasing the monsoon<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Context<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The forecast has enhanced the economic outlook, but India must conduct a water audit<\/p>\n<p><strong>What has happened?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The forecast of a normal monsoon has brought relief all around. For farmers, the India Meteorological Department\u2019s estimate that rainfall during the summer, between June and September, will be 97% of the 50-year average of 89 cm, is bound to raise fresh expectations.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Advice to farmers on ideal cropping mix<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It is vital for the Centre to arrive at a policy that gives constructive advice to farmers on the ideal cropping mix and help them get the cost-plus-50% margin that it has promised them<\/p>\n<p><strong>Utilizing the most of rainfall<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Master Plan for Artificial Recharge to Ground Water drawn up by the Centre should be pursued scientifically, to help States with the most water-stressed blocks get adequate funds to build artificial recharge structures<\/li>\n<li>Moreover, for those farmers who choose to continue with wheat and rice, transfer of expertise and provision of equipment that enables efficient utilisation of water is vital<\/li>\n<li>An estimate of water used to grow rice and wheat, measured in cubic metres per tonne, shows that India uses more than what, say, China does<\/li>\n<li>In the case of cotton, the figures present an even more staggering contrast: 8,264 cubic metres for India, against 1,419 for China<\/li>\n<li>Combined with distortions in procurement subsidies, water stress due to such use is inevitable.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Changing pattern of monsoon<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>On the monsoon as a whole, studies indicate a change in the pattern since 1950<\/li>\n<li>There is an increase in daily average rainfall since 2002, barring some of the worst El Ni\u00f1o years, likely due to higher land temperatures and cooler oceans<\/li>\n<li>What is well known is that a good monsoon raises agriculture\u2019s contribution to GDP growth, while a drought year depresses it<\/li>\n<li>Clearly, governments need to invest consistently to harvest the monsoon, both on the surface and underground, with community participation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chasing the monsoon Context The forecast has enhanced the economic outlook, but India must conduct a water audit What has happened? The forecast of a normal monsoon has brought relief all around. For farmers, the India Meteorological Department\u2019s estimate that rainfall during the summer, between June and September, will be 97% of the 50-year average&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/chasing-the-monsoon\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Chasing the monsoon<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704942584},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29917\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}