By: Dr. Ripudaman Singh (Special Correspondent ICN Group) & Hemant Kumar ( Agriculture Correspondent ICN Group)
Drought affects virtually all climatic regions and more than one-half of the Earth is susceptible to droughts every year. Drought affects the greatest number of people in the world, especially in India.
NEW DELHI: With the southwest monsoon season ending, the government’s drought warning system predicts there could be a drought in 225 districts across “17 agriculturally important states of India,” putting further strain on distressed agriculture sector.
According to the government’s National Agriculture and Drought Assessment System (NADAMS) the affected districts include large agricultural areas in the states of Maharashtra, UP and Punjab.
The three states had announced farm loan waivers just months ago. These states are already struggling to pay the promised waivers and will find it harder to cope with more distress in the farm sector, experts said.
Drought is a recurrent natural feature which results from the lack of precipitation over an extended period of time (e.g. a season or several years). It is a temporary deviation of rainfall and moisture conditions from the mean, thus differing from aridity and seasonal aridity.
Drought conditions also loom over the chronically distressprone areas of Vidharba, Marathwada, Bunderkhand and Telangana raising the prospect of another miserable year for farmers in these regions.
