Transcript Agriculture and Climate Change in India Siddhartha

Agriculture and Climate Change in India
Siddhartha (Pipal Tree, India)
Climate change and India
• Already weather patterns are changing in India, with unpredictable
and erratic rainfall, floods and drought seriously affecting
agricultural operations.
• In future coastal areas will find an increase in salinity, again
affecting agriculture and drinking water.
• In the long run the melting of the Himalayan glaciers will increase
floods to begin with and inundate coastal areas. Eventually there
will less water in the rivers, thus affecting agricultural production,
and creating climate refugees.
Staple food crops and population dependency
Climate change
and rice
production
In India, rice production
is likely to decrease by
almost a tonne per
hectare if the
temperature goes up
by 2oC.
By 2050, about half of India’s
wheat production area could get
heat-stressed, with the
cultivation period becoming
smaller, affecting productivity.
For each 1oC rise in mean
temperature, wheat yield losses
in India are likely to be around 7
million tonnes per year, or
around USD1.5 billion at current
prices.
Food inflation
Food prices
have been rising
each year in
India. Food
inflation in
India was
10.81% in June
this year.
Pressure remained on pulses, vegetables and potatoes.
Potatoes turned costlier by 73%, pulses by 28.26% and
vegetables by 24.11% on annual basis. Eggs, meat and
fish prices were up by 16% and milk by 8.01%.
The India State Hunger Index 2008 by the International Food Policy
Research Institute
Malnutrition in India
Malnutrition is more common in
India than in Sub-Saharan Africa.
One in every three malnourished
children in the world lives in
India.
About 50 per cent of all childhood
deaths are attributed to
malnutrition.
In India, around 46% of all
children below the age of three
are too small for their age, 47%
are underweight and at least 16%
are wasted. Many of these
children are severely
malnourished.
Loss of multiple cropping
In South Asia, the biggest blow to food production is expected to
come from the loss of multiple cropping zones. The worst-affected
areas are predicted to be the double-and triple-cropping zones. To
offset most of this loss, an effort must be made to convert today’s
single-cropping areas into two-crop zones. This can first and foremost
be done by efficient water harvesting and equitable management.
Pulses villages
• In the 2011-12 Union budget Rs.300 crores has
been allocated under the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas
Yojana (RKVY) for the development of 60,000
villages of pulses crops.
• The scheme targets areas that are rain-fed and
do not have access to irrigation.
• The cost of protein in the diet is going up and
Pulses Villages could help to end protein hunger.
But this programme has not been implemented
properly.
Importance of promoting pulses
(legumes/lentils)
• The gap between demand and supply in the
case of pulses is nearly 4 million tonnes.
• Farmers appear interested in the cultivation of
pulses, both due to the prevailing high prices
and due to these crops requiring less irrigation
water.
• Such high value, but low water requiring crops
also fix nitrogen in the soil.
• Before chemical fertilizers became popular,
cereal-legume rotation was widely adopted
for soil fertility replenishment.
Oilseed production in
India
•
Fluctuations of temperature,
especially during flowering time, will
affect oilseed production in India.
• The major oilseeds grown in India
are groundnut, rapeseed (a variety of
mustard) and mustard, sesame,
castor, linseed, sunflower, and
soybean.
• Among the edible oilseeds,
groundnut takes up about 65% of the
area under oilseed cultivation and
accounts for nearly half of the
indigenous edible oil production.
• This is followed by rapeseedmustard, which accounts for nearly
30% of the area.
Adaptation package for rain-fed areas
• A special package for adaptation should be
developed for rain-fed areas based on minimising
risk.
• The production model should be diversified to
include crops, livestock, fisheries, poultry and agro
forestry;
• Home gardens should be promoted to make up
shortfalls in food and nutrition from climate-related
losses;
• Farm ponds, fertiliser trees and biogas plants must
be promoted in all semi-arid rain-fed areas which
constitute 60% of our cultivated area.
Indigenous cattle
Indigenous cattle are much better suited in the context of climate
change than hybrid varieties. But breed improvements of
indigenous cattle must be carried out. The right kind of feed
mixtures can improve milk yields and reduce methane emissions.
Community seed banks
Decentralised seed production programmes involving local
communities, to address the crisis of seed availability. Seeds of the
main crops and contingency crops (for a delayed/failed monsoon, or
floods) as well as seeds of fodder and green manure plants specific to
the agro ecological unit must be produced and stocked.
Short-duration crop varieties and crop substitution
• Developing short-duration crop varieties (especially wheat) that
can mature before the peak heat phase sets in.
• Developing strategies for crop substitution where needed. Wheat
displacement with millets, tubers like potato, yams and cassava.
Value addition and small scale units
Value addition to primary products have to be attended to at the
village level. Self-help groups of women in food processing needs to
be promoted.
Rotting food grains
Officials say that, in all, about 6 million tonnes of grain worth at least
$1.5 billion (955.5 million pounds) could perish this year.
Analysts say the losses could be far higher because more than 19 million
tonnes are now lying in the open, exposed to searing summer heat and
monsoon rains. Rats also eat up a sizeable amount of grain.
Need for modern grain storage facilities
Apart from promoting storage at the household and community levels a
national grid of ultra-modern grain storage facilities must be urgently created.
(In addition to over 250 million tonnes of food grains, we will soon be
producing over 300 million tonnes of fruits and vegetables.)
Unless processing and storage are improved, post-harvest losses and food
safety concerns will continue to grow.
Millets in the
PDS
We should also
expand the scope
of the Public
Distribution System
by including millets
in the food basket.
Credit and insurance will be needed for small farmers,
especially in dry-land areas.
Pests and crop loss
Evidences indicate that pests cause 25% loss in rice, 5-10% in wheat,
30% in pulses, 35% in oilseeds, 20% in sugarcane and 50% in cotton
Pest control strategies
• An early warning system should be put in place to monitor
changes in pest and disease profiles and predict new pest
and disease outbreaks. The overall pest control strategy
should be based on integrated pest management because it
takes care of multiple pests in a given climatic scenario.
• Bio-pesticides comprise a major component of IPM. Most of
the bio-pesticides are host-specific.
• A number of plant products such as azadirachtin (neem),
pyrethrum, nicotine, etc. are also valuable as bio-pesticides.
In India, more than 160 natural enemies have been studied
for their utilization against insect pests.
Climate risk managers
• The government needs to set up, in each of the 128 agroclimatic zones, a Climate Risk Management Research and
Training Centre.
• These centres should develop alternative cropping patterns
to suit different weather probabilities.
• Along with a climate literacy movement, a woman and a man
from every Panchayat will have to be trained as Climate Risk
Managers.
• We will then have over half-a-million trained Climate Risk
Managers, well versed in the science and art of climate change
adaptation and mitigation.