Sweat over climate

We all noticed with anxiety a delay of more than a fortnight in the monsoon arrival in the North last month. There may be nothing unusual about that. But then over the years we have also noticed a creeping rise in heat every summer. This is global warming at work. There is a pattern; disruptions are getting more and more intense and frequent. The Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture has now warned us of a likely 4.5-9 per cent drop in agricultural yield over the next decade. This will mean a 1.5 per cent drop in the GDP, much of it affecting Punjab and Haryana.

India has thus far made appropriate noises on climate change, including the signing up for the global plan to fight the slow disaster. Action at home on mitigating the effects and preparing for countering setbacks, however, has been minimal. Our green cover quality continues to deteriorate despite figures showing a marginal increase in the forest cover, of which we have lost about 40 per cent between 1880 and 2013. What is of immediate economic concern is nearly zero movement in our larger agricultural set-up towards understanding and devising technologies and practices to survive the rising mercury. What is scarier is that the new conditions are not going to be constant, but will keep changing with each passing year; our agro-economy managers will have to be rather nimble in their planning.

The irreconcilable reality today is that we are yet to address even 20th century issues — post-harvest handling and storage being the foremost — which cost us 30 per cent of our total food produce. Finding a solution — more pertinently, investment — to these challenges alone can offset more than the loss expected from climate change. The path ahead is to immediately get down to a detailed region-wise assessment of disruptions expected. Plan cropping strategies for each agro-climatic zone; develop, test and deliver to farmers new seeds to adapt to the new conditions. Introduction of the Green Revolution would actually seem like cakewalk compared to the challenge that is coming up, if we take it up.