WMO Flags Rapid El Niño Strengthening; Kharif Acreage Down 23% as June Rainfall Deficit Hits 40%

The World Meteorological Organisation has put out its sharpest warning yet on El Niño, describing conditions already active in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean as likely to intensify sharply through the July–September period. The WMO's secretary general, Celeste Saulo, stated that the phenomenon is "forecast to strengthen rapidly into a strong event," and that this will raise the probability of drought, extreme rainfall episodes, and heatwaves — both on land and at sea — across multiple regions of the world, including the Indian subcontinent.

El Niño, a naturally occurring warming of Pacific sea-surface temperatures, typically suppresses the South Asian monsoon, leading to below-normal rainfall over India. These episodes recur every two to seven years and ordinarily last between nine and twelve months. The current event, arriving at the heart of the kharif sowing season, is therefore arriving at the worst possible moment for Indian farmers.

Agriculture ministry data confirms the scale of disruption on the ground. As on 25 June, total kharif area sown stood at 182 lakh hectares — a drop of roughly 23% against 236 lakh hectares covered at the same stage last year. Every major kharif crop has seen its sown area fall behind the year-ago pace.

Oilseeds have suffered the steepest setback, with acreage declining 53% compared to the corresponding period in 2023. Paddy, pulses, coarse cereals — including millets and maize — and cotton have all recorded lower sowing coverage. The proximate cause is a June rainfall deficit of 40%, which has disrupted field preparation and transplanting schedules across rain-fed belts.

Whether acreage recovers meaningfully will hinge on how the monsoon distributes across the monsoon core zone — the largely unirrigated belt where crop calendars are governed almost entirely by seasonal rainfall — during July and August.

With the spectre of a deficient monsoon sharpening, Union Home Minister Amit Shah convened a review meeting on Friday to assess the rainfall shortfall and its agricultural consequences. Shah confirmed that the government is continuously monitoring below-normal rainfall and what he described as "potential drought conditions in certain parts" of the country.

He directed the ministries of agriculture, Jal Shakti, and power to coordinate closely with state governments and advise farmers on crop choices suited to a low-rainfall environment. The government's preferred alternatives are crops with lower water requirements: fodder, millets, and pulses. Shah also instructed officials to monitor all water reservoirs across the country.

The directive is significant as it signals a proactive pivot away from water-intensive crops such as paddy and sugarcane in vulnerable districts — a shift that, if acted upon at scale, could reshape near-term procurement volumes and price dynamics for both the crops being substituted and those being promoted.

The WMO's forecast does not preclude a partial recovery in overall seasonal rainfall totals — the organisation has noted that the national deficit is expected to narrow as the monsoon extends its coverage. However, aggregate numbers can mask wide regional variation, and it is the distribution of rains within the monsoon core zone that will ultimately determine how much of the sowing shortfall can be recovered.

For commodity traders and agri-businesses, the key watch-points over the coming weeks include:

• Weekly acreage reports from the agriculture ministry tracking paddy and oilseed sowing progress
• Reservoir storage levels, now under central monitoring as directed by the Home Ministry
• India Meteorological Department sub-divisional forecasts for August rainfall across major kharif-growing states

Any further deterioration in oilseed acreage, already 53% below last year, would have downstream implications for domestic edible-oil availability and import demand.