By 2030, rice and wheat are likely to see about 6-10 per cent decrease in yields
Rising temperature affects flowering and leads to pests and disease buildup. Flood and excess rain over a short duration of time cause extensive damage to crops. Extreme weather events have caught attention of agrarian experts and scientists alike and they are now focussing on natural farming to arrest the impacts of climate change.
Impact of climate change on agriculture
While speaking at the Natural Farming Summit hosted by the Sri Sri Institute of Agricultural Sciences & Technology Trust (SSIAST) in Bengaluru from May 9-10, B. Venkateshwarlu, former director at International Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture (CRIDA), Hyderabad, said, “Climate change affects all the three aspects of food security: availability, access and absorption. When production decreases, availability of food decreases. Climate change hits poor the most. They don’t have income to buy the food, so their access to it is affected. This, in turn, has an impact on health and affects absorption.”
According to him, climate change has about 4-9 per cent impact on agriculture each year. As agriculture contributes 15 per cent to India’s GDP, climate change presumably causes about 1.5 per cent loss in GDP.
Please click here to read more.