New Delhi, Sept 17 - India's sugarcane output will fall 20 percent this year, not as sharp as previously expected because of a recent recovery in otherwise poor monsoon rains, a top government official said.
"Earlier we expected a 30 percent fall in output, but the late revival of monsoon improved the situation," said L.S. Rathore, head of the India Meteorological Department's Agromet division, which issues weather advisories for farmers.
The cane crop in the top-producing state of Uttar Pradesh has been ravaged by a drought after the annual monsoon started with the weakest June rains in 83 years.
"The bad monsoon in June caused huge damage to cane crop in Uttar Pradesh and some districts of Maharashra," he told reuters in an interview.
India's cane crop is set to contract for a second year because of low prices in the past and weak rains this year, helping New York raw sugar futures surge to the highest in nearly three decades on prospects of Indian imports.
India produced 2.712 billion tonnes of sugarcane in the last crop year ending June.
This year's monsoon arrived a week ahead than its usual time of June 1, but rainfall dipped sharply after initial showers.
The monsoon started recovering in mid-August and in the week to Sept. 9, rainfall was 21 percent above normal, the heaviest this season.
However, data on Thursday showed rains were 41 percent below average in the week to Sept. 16. For the season, rains are 21 percent below normal. [ID:nDEB002975]
"Recent congenial temperature and widespread rainfall over the cane growing belt of Indo-Gangetic plains will help improve the growth of the standing crop," he said.
Rathore said the cane crop would remain vulnerable to weather variations.
"Winter frost and winter temperature would be crucial. Cane should get warm days and cooler nights. If nights are not cooler, the sugar content is low," he said.
Warm days were necessary for photosynthesis, making winter frost a worry for all crops, he added.
"The monsoon failure would cost the country by not more than 15 percent decline in total food production," he said.
India produced 234 million tonne of foodgrains in 2008/09.
The expectation of loss was mainly due to a likely 10 percent decline in rice, the main summer-sown food crop of the country.