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The canals and barrages in the village were absolutely dry this summer. But rain in August and September overwhelmed the Sindphana river,” says Ganesh Ghodake, a farmer from Kurla village in Maharashtra’s Beed district. Heavy rainfall on September 19-22 made the river swell and the water flooded his farm, which lies adjacent to the river, destroying 3 hectares (ha) of cotton crop. “I invested Rs 1.25 lakh on cultivating cotton, and the sale would have fetched me a profit of Rs 50,000. But now I will face a loss of Rs 65,000,” says the 42-year-old farmer in the state’s perennially arid Marathwada region.
Marathwada comprises Chhattrapati Sambhajinagar, Jalna, Beed, Latur, Hingoli, Nanded, Dharashiv and Parbhani districts. This year, the region received 890.7 mm of rain against the normal of 642.8 mm—an excess of 247.9 mm (about 40 per cent)—between June and September, as per India Meteorological Department (IMD). However, the rain in Marathwada has not been consistently heavy and seesawed between periods of deficit and extreme rain. Sample these: While July 31-August 6 saw an 85 per cent deficit rain, August 14-20 saw a humongous 328 per cent excess rain. Similarly, while August 21-27 saw an 85 per cent deficit rain, the following week (August 28- September 3) saw excess rainfall of 153 per cent. The pattern continued with September 4-10 seeing deficit rain of 69 per cent, followed by three weeks of excess rain: of 182 per cent (September 11-17), 153 per cent (September 18-24) and 271 per cent (September 25-October 1), resulting in wide-spread loss of crop, livestock and property. Addressing a press conference on October 7, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis announced that 29 of the state’s 36 districts have been affected by the rainfall, with crop loss on an estimated 6.8 million ha. Of this 3.2 million ha is in Marathwada, as per Chhattrapati Sambhajinagar division commissionerate data. Overall, the state has seen 1,189.4 mm of rain between June 1 to September 30 against the normal of 994.5 mm—a rise of 20 per cent, as per IMD data.
In the last week of September, Down To Earth visited 16 villages in six Marathwada districts to find most farms...
This article was originally published in the October 16-31, 2025 print edition of Down To Earth