There is increased risk for agriculture in India from the monsoon after drought ravaged the country in 2002, forecast the Summer Outlook report of Salomon Smith Barney made available Monday.
A joint report by Salomon meteorologists Jon Davis and Mark Russo said the trend of monsoon rainfall has been declining since the late 1990s and last year's was the worst since 1987.
"Looking back throughout history, when it is dry for several years, it tends to remain that way generally for an extended period of time," they said.
There have been instances of consecutive drought years in India and people should be aware that this could happen.
"Some of the long-term global circulation models are indicating a dry bias across much of India during the time frame of June through September -- the Indian monsoon season," Russo and Davis said.
This does not mean there will be a replay of last year's poor monsoon, but the "guidance...raises the possibility for a dry bias this season,"
Indian crop production depends heavily on the timely arrival of the annual monsoon rains. The drought last year hit the world's 12th largest economy since agriculture accounts for 25 per cent of gross domestic product and drives domestic demand.
The drought was blamed for pushing India's 2002-03 (April-March) economic growth down to 4.4 per cent from 5.6 per cent the prior year.
Last month, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) forecast monsoon rains would be 96 per cent of the long-term average.
According to the IMD's scale, below-normal rainfall is 90-97 per cent of the long-term average, near normal 98-102 per cent of the average, and above normal 103-110 per cent.
Salomon added there is an increased risk in the Canadian Prairies and Australia.
"These areas need to be monitored simply due to the low sub-soil moisture going into the new growing seasons -- spring wheat and canola in Canada and winter wheat in Australia," the report said.
