-The Times of India The monsoon in August has beaten most expectations, including the India Meteorological Department's outlook of 96% rain for the month, by registering 99.6% of normal rainfall (till August 29). The rain rally, particularly impressive in north India, has raised hopes of a better than expected kharif crop output. The overall monsoon deficit now stands at 12%, considerably better than 19% when the month began. The northern states, which...

-Live Mint Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd, the world’s biggest tractor maker by volume, cut its forecast for sales growth of the farm equipment in India as the worst rainfall in three years delays crop sowing. Mahindra estimates industry sales to expand as little as 2% in the year ending 31 March, Pawan Goenka, president of the automotive and farm equipment division at the Mumbai-based company, said in an email response on Thursday. Goenka...

-Live Mint Notwithstanding the drought, farmers have preferred to sow sugar cane and rice instead of opting for less water-intensive crops such as coarse grains and pulses. The latest sowing data released by the agriculture ministry as of 16 August shows that area under coarse cereals and pulses is down 13% and 12.39%, respectively, from last year, while that for rice and sugar cane contracted only 3.57% and 4.53%, respectively. In the process,...

-PTI Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council today said poor monsoon is likely to pull down farm sector growth rate to 0.5 per cent in the current financial year, a projection that is even lower than in 2009-10 when monsoon was the worst in 28 years. The growth in the agriculture sector was one per cent in 2009-10 when production had fallen by 16 million tonnes due to poor monsoon. As many as...

-The Times of India Though rains have lashed most parts of the country in the past few days, raising hopes of wiping out deficiency, a strong likelihood of the emergence of rain-interrupting El Nino weather pattern in September is still keeping weathermen on tenterhooks. The El Nino conditions, known to cause dry weather, are likely to disrupt the monsoon's progress which has reduced the overall rain deficit from 19% in July to...