Blog series: Climate change and agriculture – Part I
Climate and agriculture are intensely interconnected, especially in case of India, where large part of cultivable land is still under rain fed conditions. At present, climate change has emerged as most formidable challenge in the path of sustainable agriculture. Farmers face more risk and uncertainty, with yields and incomes threatened on a more frequent basis. The unprecedented heatwaves and frequent extreme events witnessed across the globe in the previous decade and their continuation in this decade are all visible signs of these impacts.
Since India’s agriculture sector is largely dependent on rainwater for irrigation, erratic changes in rainfall patterns has exposed the sector in many ways. Due to erratic rainfall conditions over the years, farmers are largely dependent on groundwater for irrigation. This leads to over extraction of groundwater through diesel-run thermal pumps which lead to huge carbon emission at one hand resulting in global warming and climate change as well as over use of ground water leading to scarcity of water. Around 71% of irrigation needs of the state are met through Ground water. This results in depletion of ground water storage in the state.
Since over 85% of country’s agriculture households have low financial resilience, the ill effects of climate induced disasters or crop loss due to climate change become further gruesome. Despite Government of India’s strenuous efforts and launching multiple climate-resilience schemes to promote renewable energy and sustainable agricultural practices, the situation on ground needs strong interventions by private and public sector.
Is it due to the fact that farmers do not know what climate change is and how can the build resilience towards the same? Can we say that “Climate change” is just a buzz around social media, news articles and an ignored phenomenon among farmers who are worst hit by climatic disasters?
A recent study conducted by the team of People’s Action for National Integration (PANI) in collaboration with MacArthur Foundation tried to deep dive into needs of farmers in one of the aspirational districts of Uttar Pradesh named Siddharthnagar, especially, pertaining to information gap and skill gap that refrain the farmers from building resilience against climate change or climate-induced disasters.
- District’s dependence on ground water is depicted through following indicators - District’s total agricultural area is 2,23,441 hectares out of which 34,331 hectares lie in target blocks of Mithwal and Khesraha blocks of Siddharthnagar. The net irrigated area in the district is 1,75,087 hectares. out of which only about 16,234 hectare area is under surface water irrigation which is about 10.6% of the total net irrigated area. The remaining about 1,58,118 hectare net area is irrigated by ground water resources, which is about 89.4% of the total net irrigated area.[1]
- Among all the farmers’ surveyed under the study, their understanding of climate change is limited to erratic rainfall pattern or droughts. Farmers do not understand that climatic changes are to an extent result of human beings’ own practices in agriculture, natural resource usage, and rapid urbanization.
- Most of the farmers are not aware of climate-adaptive agricultural techniques nor have they ever grown any climate-resilient crops. Since most of the farmers are using chemical fertilisers, there is lack of awareness around ill-effects of prolonged usage of chemical fertilisers on soil health and crop yield.
- Multiple effects of climate-induced disasters were observed by PANI team on farmers’ lives in terms of
- reduced income and savings due to crop damage, missing crop cycles;
- deteriorating health conditions due to lack of hygiene during excessive rainfall, droughts, etc;
- school drop-outs increased among farmers’ children due to lack of income or migration due to climatic disasters;
- farmers’ families getting trapped in vicious circle of debt and poverty
- Most of the respondents are not aware that government has launched several schemes to offer support to farmers to build resilience against climate-change or related disasters through monetary and non-monetary benefits
- A few of farmers who are aware of government schemes are either not aware of their eligibility, application process or related documentation required for applying for such schemes and have shown keen interest in seeking such support.
Above findings indicate that there is a pressing need to spread awareness around climate change and climate resilient mechanisms to support the farmers distressed due to climatic disasters which has now become a chronic problem hitting India’s agriculture sector quite hard year over year. There is no denial to the fact that government, philanthropic organisations, NGOs and many other private sector players are making multiple attempts to spread this awareness and offer financial assistance to farmers to build resilience however, lack of information and skill to build a self-sustained ecosystem in rural areas through collective action by farmers and village communities, this change will cease to persist.
[1] http://cgwb.gov.in/AQM/NAQUIM_REPORT/UP/SIDDHARTH%20NAGAR%20FINAL.pdf
