Climate change causes fluctuation in production of major crops in different years in India. The impact of climate change on Indian agriculture was studied under National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA). Rain-fed rice yields in India are projected to reduce marginally by 2.5 per cent in 2050 and 2080 and irrigated rice yields by 7 per cent in 2050 and 10 per cent in 2080 scenarios. Further, wheat yield is projected to reduce by 6-25 per cent in 2100 and maize yields by 18-23 per cent.
According to the World Bank, a 2 degree Celsius rise in the world’s average temperatures will make India’s summer monsoon highly unpredictable. An abrupt change in the monsoon could precipitate a major crisis, triggering more frequent droughts as well as greater flooding in large parts of India. India’s northwest coast to the south eastern coastal region could see higher than average rainfall. Dry years are expected to be drier and wet years wetter.
As rising temperatures make farming more resource hungry, countries in the Global South have been compelled to come up with measures to ensure the agriculture sector is able to stave off this seemingly insurmountable challenge. Although effective blueprints have been placed to deal with changing environment conditions, the rapid changes in weather patterns have upended crop production crop cycles, which have adversely affected yields and income levels of farmers.
The Indian agriculture sector is not immune to these changes and even Prime Minister Narendra Modi has acknowledged that the sector is facing several challenges, ranging from supply chain disruptions to climate change. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research has developed more than 800 climate-resilient varieties to counter the change in climate patterns. But mere availability is not enough as stakeholders need to come together to build more awareness and ensure easy availability.
India is primarily an agrarian country and the farming community forms the bedrock of the country’s economic growth potential. The Indian agriculture sector is weathering an external storm in the form of climate change and there is a need to help bringing in the latest modern practices to combat this environmental shift which will have a lasting impact on food security and ensure the Indian farmer is not hamstrung by lack of resources in his quest to boost crop yields. Farmers should be made ready to tackle the disruptions brought by climate change.
As climate change is now a stark reality, a concerted approach is the need of the hour. The need to develop a responsive and appropriate scientific mechanism to counter the impact of climate change is also forcing companies to come up with out of the box solutions for the farming community. A judicious mix of traditional knowledge, modern farming methodologies, along with postmodern emerging technologies will ensure food security in India, notwithstanding the ill effects of climate change.
