Deadly news for the Indian Agro-economy
The immense global climate change is going to severely impact the agro-sector of India, as warned by the experts. Indian economy, which is profoundly related to agriculture, might be seriously affected by this change in the climate. But where does the problem lie?
IPCC Reports and the Threats
On 17th January 2022, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has published a report on 'Science of Climate Change', which claims that the effects of global warming are continuously being intensified and widened, resulting in some severe changes in the climate. Along with that, the report claims that some changes are 'irreversible', which means that no method is known yet that can change those impacts. Threatening news indeed!
The first of the four IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) reports of India is directed towards some severe impacts on the climate such as sea-level rising, heavy monsoon, intense storms, flood, glacial melting, et cetera. The effect of continuously increasing temperature has made the agricultural conditions difficult.
Empirical Observations
It has already been seen in the studies of ICAR (Indian Council of Agricultural Research) that in the states like Rajasthan, Punjab and Andhra Pradesh, the consumption of water in the agro-sector is hiked more than 30% because of the high evaporation rate and crop duration due to forced maturity. Studies of the same organisation are also showing that the temperature in the apple-growing regions of Himachal Pradesh has been rising, resulting in the recent shifts of the apple-orchards to higher altitudes for colder weather. The temperature rise is being assumed to probably be a strong factor for the decline in productivity and the per-worker output.
Indian Government’s Economic survey reports of 2017-18 had shown that the extremeness of the weather, such as flood and drought when there is a loss of around 40% than the median, the farmers might face a cut of 14% in their income.
What is to be done?
However, there are several government schemes regarding farm insurance, irrigation and job security; the problem is all about implementing and governing those schemes. Besides that, hardier and fast-maturing crops have become a sole aim in this ultra-raining situation, as suggested by agriculture researchers and scientists. The experts have also been warning that depending only on the government's schemes won't do enough if proper measures are not taken in prohibiting or at least slowing down the rate of temperature rise.
There are three more reports to be published from IPCC in this regard, focusing upon the measures to be taken, which are to be implemented properly.
