India: Enough food despite less rain

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India's Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar says the country has abundant food stocks, despite below normal rainfall. India's monsoon rains were 8 percent below normal in early July, reviving after the driest June in 83 years.

India's Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar says the country has abundant food stocks, despite below normal rainfall.

Water in the main reservoirs has even more than halved, putting winter crops at risk. Pawar says monsoon rainfall is expected to increase next month. In India, 60 percent of farms depend on the monsoons.

Trade officials say Soybean sowing would be completed in a week in the main producing central state of Madhya Pradesh. But last month's dry patch hit rice and oilseed crops in some parts of southern India. The lower water level in reservoirs would also hit hydropower, which accounts for a quarter of the country's total power generation.