India’s food grain output for 2014-15 fell by nearly five per cent owing to poor monsoon and untimely rainfall last year. The Fourth Advance Estimates of production of major crop pegged the farm output at 252.68 million tonnes – about 4.66 per cent lower than that of 2013-14.

The farm sector is set for yet another year of low production as the weather office on Monday forecast 12 per cent deficit rain this monsoon season putting a question mark on the kharif output.

India had registered a record food grain production of 265.04 million tonnes in the 2013-14 crop year.

The production of most of the crops fell because of a bad monsoon in 2014 and unseasonal rains/hailstorms during February-March 2015, which affected kharif (summer-sown) and rabi (winter-sown) crops, the Agriculture Ministry said in a statement released on Monday.

“The rainfall shortage is about 10 per cent as of now. The deficit is expected to widen further to 12 per cent by the end of the season,” Laxman Singh Rathore, Director-General of the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) said.

Rice production is estimated to have fallen to 104.80 million tonnes (MT) in 2014-15 against the record output of 106.65 MT in the previous year.

Wheat output is estimated to have declined to 88.94 MT in 2014-15 as against a record 95.85 MT achieved in the previous year.

The Ministry has revised downwards the production of wheat, pulses and oilseeds from its earlier estimates released on May 13. Wheat output was then pegged at 90.78 MT, pulses at 17.38 MT and oilseeds at 27.38 MT.

As per the fourth estimate, production of coarse cereals is estimated to have declined to 41.75 MT in 2014-15 from 43.29 MT last year.

Pulses and oilseeds production in the country, which is dependent on imports of lentils and edible oils, is also estimated to have dropped to 17.20 MT and 26.68 MT respectively, in 2014-15.

In the previous year, pulses output stood at 19.25 MT and that of oilseeds at 32.74 MT.
Cotton production is estimated to have declined marginally to 35.48 million bales (of 170 kg each) from 35.80 million bales while jute and mesta output too fell to 11.45 million bales (of 180 kg each) from 11.69 million bales in the period under review.

Sugarcane output is estimated to have risen to 359.33 MT from 352.21 MT in the period under review.