Weather anomalies can potentially cause disturbances to the short-term supply of vegetables and induce large price fluctuations, which can drive volatility in food inflation
While noting that disturbances in both rainfall and temperatures increase pressures to vegetable prices in India, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), in a report, has stated that the increasing significance of temperature shocks and their more immediate impact on vegetable prices calls for increased attention towards faster adoption of temperature-resistant crop varieties.
In the apex bank’s May 2025 bulletin, an article titled ‘Impact of weather anomalies on vegetable prices in India’ by Nishant Singh and Love Kumar Shandilya explained that this can be supported by policy interventions like the National Mission on High-yielding Seeds notified in the Union Budget 2025-26.
The article mentioned that while India is the major producer of vegetables in the world, most of the production comes from small and marginal farmers with very little or no safeguards against weather disturbances. Therefore, weather anomalies can potentially cause disturbances to the short-term supply of vegetables and induce large price fluctuations, which can drive volatility in food inflation.
“As market arrivals are not only impacted by production but several other factors also, including speculative activities by market players, foreign trade policies and government intervention, they are used to control for the impact of factors other than the weather shocks driving vegetable price movements,” the article stated.
On a broader front, the article mentioned that food and non-food inflation averaged at 5.1 per cent during April 2014 to March 2024 in India, resembling the headline inflation. A similar picture emerged even within the food group across CPI-vegetables and CPI-food, excluding vegetables, it added.
