New Delhi: Farmers have lost more than 100 lakh tonnes of rabi crops, valued over Rs 20,000 crore, due to unseasonal rainfall and hailstorm in February-April this year, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) said in a report.
As a result, India may have to import 10 lakh tonnes of wheat in the current year as about 68.2 lakh tonnes were damaged due to unseasonal rainfall in the last rabi season, the CSE stated in its report ‘Lived Anomaly’.
In February-April 2015, standing crops on 182.38 lakh hectares or 29.61 percent of the entire rabi sown area were affected. Six-seven percent of this was wheat crop.
“The fall in production of major foodgrain crops was about 86.3 lakh tonnes, which translated to a loss of Rs 15,777 crore worth of foodgrains. A fall in production of oil seeds by 14.1 lakh tonnes meant an additional loss of Rs 4,676 crore. The total economic loss was about Rs 20,453 crore”, the report cited.
As per the CSE estimates, 40 percent of the wheat cultivated area, 14 percent of area under pulses and oil seeds, and four percent of coarse cereals were affected by rain and hailstorm.
“We spent some time in converting crop loss into monetary figure taking just the minimum support price and if you look at this figure…excluding the horticulture loss, Rs 20,000 crore stands just for foodgrains and oilseeds”, CSE Deputy Director General Chandra Bhushan said.
