How to beat climate change? Lessons from 'progressive farmers' of Karnataka

From growing two or more crops together to switching to organic farming, a couple in Karnataka have found ways to cope with climate change and maintain profit

Kalaburagi district (Karnataka): “Year by year, the quantity of rainfall is decreasing,” said Shyamrao Patil, 55, a lungi-clad, generously mustachioed wiry farmer who has learned to read the changing seasons and–most importantly–adapt to them in a country where climate change has started affecting the livelihoods of a fifth of the population, or 263 million people, that depends on farming.

Here in the pigeon-pea (tur dal) bowl of Karnataka, Patil and his wife Laxmibai, 50, grow a variety of crops as one bet against climate change in an area where farming risks include water scarcity, increasingly erratic rain,