While Crisil points out that, were El Nino to occur, and agriculture growth fall to zero, taking FY15 GDP growth down from 6% to 5.2%, India is a lot better prepared?keep in mind, though, that Crisil says that in only 2 of the last 7 El Ninos, has there been a monsoon failure. The reason behind India being better prepared is that irrigation cover has grown from 17% in 1951 to 34% in 1991 to 47% in 2011, and the share of groundwater has surpassed that of canal irrigation. In FY03, which was a severe drought one, foodgrain production fell 38 million tonnes and agricultural growth contracted 6.6%. But in FY10, the worst drought year since 1972, there was only a marginal impact on foodgrain production and agriculture growth rate was low but positive at 0.8%.
Agricultural gross capital formation (AGCF) has added to this resilience. Overall AGCF has almost doubled in real terms since 2001, though the real change came from FY05 onwards with the AGCF increasing from R76,000 crore to over R1,58,000 crore by FY13?and 85% of this came from the private sector in FY12. Indeed, to make the country drought-proof, investments in irrigation facilities and farm mechanisation need to grow further. GM crops have also opened the possibilities of developing seeds for tough weather conditions. The need is to work on this further since, going forward, volatility in weather conditions is only going to increase.
