Dependence on the Weather

Since independence, there has been a rapid expansion of irrigation infrastructure. Despite the large-scale expansion, only about one third of total cropped area is irrigated today. As a consequence, two third of cropped areas is still dependent upon monsoon. As we know, monsoon in India is uncertain and unreliable. This has become even more unreliable due to change in climate.

Agriculture Continues to be Vulnerable

• An important contributing factor is that agriculture in India even today continues to be vulnerable to the vagaries of weather because close to 52% (73.2 million hectares area of 141.4 million hectares net sown area) of it is still un-irrigated and rainfed.
• Temperature increases have been particularly felt in the North-East, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Rajasthan and Gujarat. Parts of India, for example, Punjab, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh have been the least affected.
• Extreme deficiencies are more concentrated in Uttar Pradesh, North-East, and Kerala, Chattisgarh and Jharkhand.

Impact of Weather on Agriculture Productivity

• The impact of temperature and rainfall is highly non-linear and felt almost only when temperature increases and rainfall shortfalls are extreme.
• Extreme climate shocks have highly divergent effects between unirrigated and irrigated areas (and consequently between crops that are dependent on rainfall), almost twice as high in the former compared with the latter.
• Definition of Unirrigated Areas:Unirrigated areas are defined as districts where less than 50% of cropped area is irrigated.
• Unirrigated areas bear the brunt of the vagaries of weather. For example, an extreme temperature shock in unirrigated areas reduces yields by 7% for kharif and 7.6% for rabi. Similarly, the effects of extreme rainfall shocks are 14.7% and 8.6% (for kharif and rabi, respectively) in unirrigated areas, much larger than the effects these shocks have in irrigated districts.
• Crops grown in rainfed areas—pulses in both kharif and rabi—are vulnerable to weather shocks while the cereals—both rice and wheat—are relatively more immune.
• Extreme temperature shocks reduce farmer incomes by 4.3% and 4.1% during kharif and rabi respectively, whereas extreme rainfall shocks reduce incomes by 13.7% and 5.5%.

How Rise in Temperature Impacts Agriculture:In a year where temperatures are 1-degree Celsius higher farmer incomes would fall by 6.2% during the kharif season and 6% during rabi in unirrigated districts. Similarly, in a year when rainfall levels were 100 millimetres less than average, farmer incomes would fall by 15% during kharif and by 7% during the rabi season.

Policy Implications

• The policy implications are stark. India needs to spread irrigation – and do so against a backdrop of rising water scarcity and depleting groundwater resources.
• The Indo-Gangetic plain, and parts of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh are well irrigated.
• But parts of Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chattisgarh and Jharkhand are still extremely vulnerable to climate change on account of not being well irrigated.
• India pumps more than twice as much groundwater as China or United States.
• Technologies of drip irrigation, sprinklers, and water management—captured in the “more crop for every drop” campaign—may well hold the key to future Indian agriculture.
• Building on the current crop insurance program (Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana), weather-based models and technology (drones for example) need to be used to determine losses and compensate farmers within weeks.