Will Covid crisis in rural India spell disaster for agriculture?

Amid the second wave of the pandemic, as farm exporters and policymakers are building various scenarios, the role of Southwest monsoon, which is likely to hit the Kerala coast on May 31, can’t be underestimated.

Synopsis

The factors that will likely contribute to this scenario include a normal monsoon that has been forecast, steady global demand for Indian farm products, stocking of rice in Africa and the Middle East due to uncertainties associated with the pandemic and, last but not the least, the sheer luck that the second wave didn’t coincide with the season of rice transplantation that takes place mainly in July.