Newsflicks's video: Why India needs a good monsoon

Can we expect a good monsoon this year? Will it at least be normal? Deficient? Disaster. Why does India depend so much on monsoon rains? It’s because we depend on farms. But that’s only a part of the reason. The real reason is that we haven’t built irrigation systems to irrigate our farms effectively. Two-thirds of India’s population depends on income from agriculture and over 40% of our cropped area depends solely on rains. What affects farmers affects you too. When the monsoon is good and farmers are able to produce a good crop, they earn more. And then they spend more – on motorcycles, televisions, clothes, jewellery, tractors. This creates demand for manufactured goods where another significant part of India is employed or invests. A bounty crop also keeps prices of food items from rising too much – keeping inflation in check. A poor monsoon or drought puts pressure on prices, leads to lower farm incomes and lower demand for manufactured goods which leads to lack of demand for companies and lower increments or even job losses for its employees. That’s one reason why everyone is busy tracking the progress of the monsoon from the moment it hits Andaman & Nicobar Islands to when it reaches the mainland in Kerala and moves ahead