To put it in a nutshell, this means a drastic change in the weather pattern across the world. This results in distruction of crops due to unseasonal rains in some places, while other places will witness severe droughts.

Traders and farmers in India too believed that the vast fluctuations in weather pattern and destruction of a large number of rain-fed crop are due to El Nino. However, this fear was put to rest by the meterological department of the country. Highly placed sources in the department confirmed that the changes in the climatic conditions of the country are not due to the EL Nino effect.They have attributed the late rains, dry spell and hailstorm to ``seasonal variation in weather''. The source said that the country had a normal monsoon, but post monsoon we had some extra rains.

"There were 18 EL Nino years in the current century. We have compared the conditions prevailing in those years to the current climatic changes in the country and we have reached a conclusion that our country has not been effected by the El Nino effect." said a meterological source.

There's no one-to-one correlation with the rains in certain parts of the country and El Nino and most of the poor monsoons in the past were not due to El Nino. The worst impact was in 1987, when the country faced the century's worst drought on a lesser forceful El Nino.

This year the seasonal variation in the weather pattern was particularly severe. The country has seen many changes like unseasonal rains, hailstorms, cold wave and a recent heat wave. This has resulted in destruction of various crops. States like Maharashtra hasrecorded one of its worst agricultural seasons in the recent time as per agriculture ministry sources in the state government.

Impact on crops Because of the seasonal variation in weather a number of crops have been hit. Almost 50 per cent of the standing kharif crops in Maharashtra have been destroyed because of unprecedented rain in December. Unseasonal rains has affected the production of almost all oilseeds in the country.

Rubber crop in Kerala has been affected by unseasonal rains which was followed by severe drought in February and March, resulting in a drop in production by 6,000 tonnes. Mango crop through out the country has been affected. Output of Maharashtra's famous alphonso variety is likely to be only 30 per cent of last year's production. Grape too has taken a beating. On the otherhand there has been over production of Pappaya, forcing farmers to destroy part of their production.

Output of vegetables too has been poor. Unseasonal rains has caused heay damage to vegetables in some of themain producing states like Punjab, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat.

Onion was the most talked about crop which had seen a virtual wipe-out of crop in Maharsatra. The country's kharif production has dropped by almost 25 per cent. Potato too followed suit. Uttar Pradesh saw its production of potatoes decline by 35 per cent. West Bengal, the largest producer of patatoes in the country is likely to see a drop in production. Barddhaman district of the state, which normally has the highest production, has cultivated the crop in only 15,000 hectares as against 67,000 hectares.Production in cotton too has shown a drop in production, with a major chunk of crop in Punjab being destroyed. Both the northern and southern states have recorded a drop in production.

In pulses, tur dal production from Karnataka, the largest producer, has been affected. Out of a total of 0.22 million hectares sown, reports say that 0.16 million has been affected. The overall production of pulses is likely to show adowntrend.

Overall agricultural production has shown a growth of only 0.1 per cent during the year 1997-98 against 5.8 per cent in the previous year. This was mainly because of a shift in cropping pattern adopted by the farmers. Even though the country has not been directly affected by El Nino, its impact on neighbouring countries has had an effect on prices of commodities like pepper, coconut, cocoa etc.

The worst is yet to come

If one would think that the worst is over and thank their luck that the country has not been affected by EL Nino despite the damage caused by the `seasonal variation', then they will have to think again. SK Ray, a renowned name in the industry from the Institue of Economic Growth, Delhi, has predicted that the worst is yet to come.

He has predicted, using 100 years of data, that rainfall might be affected from June 1998 onwards, both in terms of quantity as well as timing. He pointed out that the definition of abnormal used by the meterological department was variationto the extent of 20 per cent from normal. However, he said that there is no reason to worry as the farmers have quickly adopted to the change in weather pattern. As per his study, rainfall for seven of the past ten years has been below normal (a fluctuation of one per cent is considered as abnormal). For four years the dip has been significant resulting in a marginal drop in production.

Migration of crop has been cited as the main reason for stable production. Areas affected by dry spells have shifted to oilseeds and non-food crop. Rabi crop contribution to the total production has increased to 50 per cent, thereby increasing the total production. Thus dependence on rains by the agricultural sector shows a reduction. However, he said that the affect will be felt on the livestocks as there will be a short supply of fodder in the coming year.

State severely affected

Sources in the ministry of agriculture in Maharashtra, said that the year 1997-98 has been one of the worst in the history of thestate as far as agriculture is concerned. There was not a single natural calamity that did not have an impact, an official said.

The year started with long dry spells streching over two-three weeks in June, July and August. This resulted in a delay in sowing of the crop. As a result of the drought farmers shifted from the normal crops.

This was followed by torrential rains and floods specially in districts of Osmanabad and Buldana.

The months of October, November and December saw wide spread rains and hailstorms which was spread over 24 districts. In fact in some of the districts, rainfall in December was 20 times the normal level. This at the time of harvesting has destroyed most of the standing kharif crop (mostly in Vidharbha and Nanded districts). As on December the area affected by the natural calamities was to the tune of 11,36,000 hectares.

The months January, February and March too saw their share of hailstorms, specially in mid-March. This resulted in 70,000 hectares further beingaffected.

Thus in all, over 12 lakh hectares being affected during the year. The crop estimate by the ministry has been revised downward from 145 lakh tonnes (the same as the previous years production) to 100 lakh tonnes.

The state periodically released seeds, free of cost to farmers. In all 65,000 quintals of seeds were released to the farmers. For farmers whose crop has been totally destroyed, the government initially planned to give them Rs 1,000 per hectare for a maximum of two hectares, after evaluating the situation the government increased the area from two to five hectares.A government source said that latest figures show that fifty per cent of the standing crop has been destroyed. And all this was not a result of El Nino but of `seasonal variation' in weather.