Unseasonal rains in Gujarat wreak havoc on crops; farmers grapple with major losses

While the IMD has predicted that the heavy to very heavy rains shall continue in the coming days, parts of Central Gujarat including Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad also experienced cold winds causing a sudden drop in temperature.

In coastal districts of Saurashtra – Gir Somnath, Dwarka and Amreli an orange alert has been issued for the past three days. Farmers, who have already lost crops twice before to unseasonal rains this year, were seen queueing up in front of Agricultural Market Produce Committees (APMCs) in the districts overnight to sell the crops before they get damaged in the rain.

Difficult year

“This year has been very difficult. We’re struggling to make ends meet,” said Bekabhai Rabari, a farmer from Dwarka.

“Unseasonal rain in May ruined our summer crops, and heavy rains in July-August caused floods that destroyed our winter sowing. Now, just as we’re about to sell the little we managed to salvage in the last floods, it’s raining again. If we don’t sell quickly, the crops will be damaged in APMC storage—just like in 2017, when uncovered storage led to massive losses. The APMC storage doesn’t have a cover and all the stored crops awaiting sale were damaged. I can’t afford another setback this year,” Rabari rued.

Also read: Severe rains, lack of compensation prove double-whammy for Gujarat farmers

Pravinsinh Dhodhiya, another farmer from Surendranagar, who has been waiting at local APMC for over a day, told The Federal, “We have been here for the last 36 hours now. There are more than 200 farmers in the queue waiting to sell their crops. If we don’t sell now, either it will be damaged in the rains in our homes or at the APMC storage. Either way, it is the farmers who will bear the loss."

Drought prone to rain-prone

Until ten years ago, Gujarat had dry and arid weather and frequently experienced draught due to lack of sufficient rainfall in the state. However, over the years, Gujarat has not been witnessing heavy to very heavy rains but unseasonal rainfall.

As per the IMD data, in June 2025, Gujarat received 288 mm to 538 mm rainfall in June alone, making it the highest rainfall the state has received in a month since 2015. Barring Banaskantha, Patan, Mehsana, Devbhumi Dwarka, and Rajkot districts that received less rain than June 2024, the other districts received an average of 25 more rainfall than 2024. Bhavnagar and Dahod received 50 per cent more rainfall the same month causing floods in both districts.

Ashok Kumar Das, the head of IMD Gujarat told The Federal, “Between June and August 2016 that used to be considered the monsoon season in Gujarat, the state had received 36.76 mm rainfall. Back then the weather used to be arid and draught prone in Gujarat. But post 2017-18, the weather began to shift and Gujarat began to receive more rainfall that kept increasing each year. Now, the once draught prone state is experiencing flood-like situation at least couple of times a year. By 2021, the Gujarat had become rain prone from a rain deficit state. In June 2024, the average rainfall of just 24 hours in Central Gujarat was 91 mm.”

Further, he added that in 2025, so far, the state has received a surplus of over 25 per cent more rainfall with 1104.42 mm (as of October 29, 5 pm) compared to the average of 881.84 mm since 2020. "In fact, this October so far has received the highest rainfall since 2015 with very heavy rains in the last three days,” he added.

As per the IMD, Gujarat data, Gujarat received 762 mm rainfall in 2014, 650 mm in 2015, 727 mm in 2016, 909 mm in 2018, 638 mm in the year 2019, 1,193 mm in 2020, 1,137 mm in 2021, 827 mm in 2022 which has a relatively dry year, 1,038 mm in 2022 and 948 mm in 2023.

Also read: Gujarat receives above-average monsoon rain; several districts flooded

In 2024, Gujarat had received 1,263 mm rainfall with Kutch region receiving the highest surplus at 148.41 per cent of its average rainfall, south Gujarat received 130.48 per cent more than average, north Gujarat received 123.48 per cent more than average and east-Central Gujarat received 123.20 per cent more, while Saurashtra received 117.47 per cent more than its of its average rainfall since 2015.

Massive crop loss

Due to the unseasonal downpour, Gujarat has witnessed disruption in sowing and harvesting seasons and standing crops have been damaged. The crop loss has been especially massive in the last two years when the state’s farmers were hit by multiple flood-like situations in a year.

Sagar Rabari, a farmers’ rights activist and an AAP member told The Federal, “Both in 2024 and 2025, groundnut and cotton farmers had to resow crops multiple times due to damage to standing crops of freshly sown seeds. In October 2024, cotton farmers of Mahuva, Bhavnagar had to resow their groundnut crop after a flash flood washed the harvested crops stored at APMC. This was after the millets and sugarcane were damaged in March-April, the same year. They had barely managed to earn in 2024 when 2025 made it worse by multiple spells of very heavy rains causing havoc across Gujarat. As per our estimates after talking to farmers, crops in more than 1 lakh hectare of land was damaged in 2025 till now.”

According to data released by the Gujarat agriculture department, as of July 16, 2025, the total kharif sowing has been done on 3.87 million hectares this year which was 6.06 million hectares in 2024. The area under groundnut has decreased to 8.77 lakh hectare as against 1.49 million hectares in 2024.

Similarly, in cotton, sowing has declined to 1.72 million hectares this year as against 2.44 million hectares last year, while paddy sowing has gone down to 1.97 lakh hectare so far as compared to 3.03 lakh hectare till October 2024.

The data also reveals that the sowing of pulses fell to 2.11 lakh hectare as against 3.82 lakh hectare in 2024 and the area under vegetables has also gone down to 94m244 hectares as against 1.15 lakh hectare last year.

“The farmers are sowing less crops as they are debt ridden due to back-to-back crop losses and cannot afford to buy seeds in bulk anymore. Besides, they are also scared of further crop loss hence they are sowing in smaller patches,” added Rabari.

Loss of green cover

The environmentalists in Gujarat attribute the climate change in the state over the past ten years to decreasing green cover and overall global warming.

“One reason Gujarat is facing the impact of global warming is because the Arabian Sea is getting warmer causing more humidity and rainfall especially in coastal areas. However, another significant factor that has impacted the local weather in Gujarat is the rapidly decreasing green cover due to aggressive industrialisation and losing forest land to industry giants for projects,” Rohit Parajapati, an environmental activists based in Vadodara told The Federal.

As per the data of the state’s forest department, Gujarat’s total green cover as of June 2025 is 11.03 per cent out of which the forest cover is 7.65 per cent and tree cover is just 3.38 per cent.

In 2015-16, Gujarat had a green cover of 8,034 sq km that decreased to 6,632 sq km in 2021-22 and this has been systematically decreasing further. Compared to other states, that also witnessed industrial growth in the same period as Gujarat, Maharashtra increased its green cover by 47.7 per cent, Andhra Pradesh saw an increase of 42 per cent in its green cover and Tamil Nadu saw a jump of 31.8 per cent in its total green cover between 2015 to 2022.

“The fastest erosion of green cover happened in Gujarat between 2019 and 2021, when the major industries like Adani, Aditya Birla and Vedanta were given land with heavy plantation or forested land to open various projects including solar plants. The period saw a decline of an average of 20 per cent of green cover across the state. The period also saw an average temperature jump of 2 degrees in summer that extended till the end of September and spells of heavy rains along with it,” added Prajapati.