Please click here and here to access the report entitled Organic and Natural Farming in India: Challenges and Possibilities (released on 8th September, 2020) by Centre for Science and Environment.
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Please click here, here and here to access the key findings of the study entitled Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Agriculture and Food Security in India (released on 20th May, 2020), which has been done by Centre for Sustainable Agriculture (CSA, Hyderabad), Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI, New Delhi), and Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health (Boston).
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According to the Reply by Dr. Sanjeev Kumar Balyan, Minister of State in the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare to unstarred question no. 2249 (dated 18 December 2015), which was raised in Rajya Sabha by P Bhattacharya on ‘adverse effects of climate change on agriculture’, (please click here to access):
• The climate change studies pertaining to India show enough evidence of rising mean temperature during post-1970 period. Greater warming of 0.21C per 10 years during post-1970 period as compared to 0.51C per 100 years during past century has been reported. Besides, country experienced 15 deficit and 6 excess monsoon years in post-1960 period in comparison to only 27 deficit and 20 excess monsoon years during 1871-2014.
• These climate change pattern has already begun affecting Indian agriculture sector adversely by enhanced abiotic and biotic stresses to crops and livestock.
• Research studies indicate more erratic and intense monsoon rains/unseasonal rains and hailstorm, increasing risk of droughts and floods and rise in temperature including increased frequency of warm days. This leads to projected average reduction of yield by 6 percent in wheat, 4-6 percent in rice, 18 percent in maize, 2.5 percent in sorghum, 2 percent in mustard and 2.5 percent in potato. The crop yield were projected more vulnerable in Central and East India for wheat; Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan for irrigated rice, Maharashtra, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Assam for rainfed rice; Central India for mustard and Punjab, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal for potato.
• The impact of climate change is expected in economic viability and production of livestock systems through poor availability of quality feed and fodder, decreased reproductive performance and decline in milk production.
• ICAR- CRIDA has mapped 572 districts of the country for their vulnerability to extreme events due to climate change. The vulnerability was assessed high to very high in 230 districts, medium in 114 districts and low to very low in 228 districts.