India eyes rabi grains to fight climate change

With climate change threatening to affect India’s agriculture — a major part of which is dependent on monsoon — in the coming decades, the government is looking to increase the share of the rabi harvest in annual farm production to fight the vagaries of the nature.

The proposal, which is at a discussion stage, is part of the country’s multi-pronged strategy to adapt to changing climatic patterns. At present, almost half the country’s total foodgrains production comes from the rabi and kharif seasons each. The plan is to increase the rabi’s share in total production to almost 60 per cent. This would also involve massive re-focusing of crop and farming patterns across the country.

The kharif season, sowing for which starts around June and July and the crop is harvested from October onwards, is largely dependent on the southwest monsoon, which also provides 70 per cent of the country’s total yearly moisture.

The monsoon is vital for a good rabi harvest as well since only 46.34 per cent of India’s net sown area of 140.80 million hectares is under irrigation. Officials said the plan involves promoting paddy cultivation in fallow land in a big way during the rabi season, which would push up its overall share.

India cultivates paddy in around 42 million hectares of land, of which six to eight million hectares can easily be brought under fallow land cultivation, officials said.

The matter was recently discussed during a high-level meeting between the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and officials from the agriculture department and its research wing — Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR).

The government could also look at adopting technologies such as genetic modification (GM) or those outside GM like enzymes to develop seeds, which can withstand moisture stress, provided they are not harmful to health. “In GM, there are technologies which can withstand moisture stress for long duration, but in India, we are not allowed to adopt GM in food crops,” officials said.

Studies done by ICAR and other institutes on the long-term impact of climate change on India’s agriculture showed that the per-hectare productivity of rice in India might go down 4-10 per cent in irrigated areas and 2.5-6 per cent in rainfed areas by 2020-2080.

Similarly, wheat yields might drop 6-23 per cent by 2050 and 15-25 per cent by 2080 due to adverse impacts of climate change. Besides, mustard productivity might fall 60 per cent, potato by 12 per cent and maize yield by 18 per cent by 2050 due to climate change.

Not only that, adverse climatic conditions in the coming years could also pull down the country’s milk yield by 1.8 million tonnes per year by 2020 and the maximum impact would be on the livestock population of Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and West Bengal, an ICAR study showed.

Farming in 40 per cent out of the 630 districts in the country has been found vulnerable to climate change, studies showed. “In such a situation, it has become imperative for the governments — both at the Centre and states — to re-double their efforts to mitigate the impact of climate change,” said a senior official, who participated in the discussions.

Scientists have observed that climate, be it during the monsoon season or summers, has become more pronounced in the past few years, impacting crop yields. Rain intensity has been showing a declining trend in the eastern states of Odisha, Assam, West Bengal and Bihar, which normally received 1,100-1,200 millimeters of rains during the southwest monsoon season.