With the promise of a bountiful harvest and respite from an oppressive weather, monsoon rains arrived on the coast of Kerala, the southernmost state in India, eight days earlier than usual on Saturday. This was the earliest arrival in 16 years.
India’s $4 trillion economy depends heavily on the monsoon, which provides around 70% of the rain required to irrigate crops and refill aquifers and reservoirs. Without irrigation, about half of India’s cropland relies on the yearly rains that fall between June and September to produce a variety of crops.
In order to allow farmers to sow crops including rice, corn, cotton, soybeans, and sugarcane, summer rains typically start to lash Kerala about June 1 and spread throughout the country by mid-July.
