Agriculture contributes around 15 per cent to India’s GDP, and scientists believe that climate change will reduce agricultural productivity and it may presumably lead to loss of around 1.5% of GDP.

Impact of climate change on Indian agriculture will be as follows:

• According to National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA), the fall in agricultural productivity due to climate change will lead to reduction in rice, wheat and maize yields.
• There will be an unpredictable change in pest and disease load. There is also the possibility of minor pests becoming major pests with changing climatic conditions.
• Increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as droughts, floods and cyclones would affect the production levels more than the impact of mean changes in the climate.
• Vegetable crops, when exposed to extreme high temperatures, are subject to very high transpiration losses, and it also limits fruit setting in citrus fruits. Also, heat stress due to higher temperature at critical stages of the crop growth will impact productivity.
• There will be a rise in productivity of a few crops like chickpea, soyabean, gram, potato, etc. due to higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Not only agriculture but climate change will also affect the allied sectors like poultry, fishing etc. Thus, climate and agriculture are intensely interconnected. Initiatives taken by the government to combat the effects of climate change on agriculture include:

• The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has initiated a project NICRA (National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture) to provide strategic research on adaptation and mitigation, demonstration of technologies on farmers’ fields and creating awareness among farmers and other stakeholders to minimize the impacts of global warming on agriculture.
  • For instance, under this project, a large number of indigenous genetic resources and improved crop varieties of pulses (black gram, green gram, pigeonpea, chickpea) and cereals (rice and wheat) are screened for major abiotic stresses like drought and heat to identify superior cultivars for large scale adoption.
  • Location-specific National Resource Management (NRM) technologies are being demonstrated under the Technology Demonstration Component of NICRA in 151 climatically vulnerable districts to achieve climate resilient agriculture. District Agriculture Contingency Plans have been prepared by ICAR-CRIDA, Hyderabad for 648 districts in the country to address the adverse weather conditions.
• The National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA), one of the missions under National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC), aims to evolve and implement strategies to make Indian agriculture more resilient to the changing climate.
• The National Food Security Mission (NFSM) is implemented in the identified districts across the country with the objective of increasing food-grain production through area expansion and productivity enhancement, restoring soil fertility and productivity at individual farm level and enhancing farm level economy.
• The National Adaptation Fund for climate change supports concrete adaptation activities dealing with mitigation of the adverse effects on agriculture.

Other measures like Green India Mission (GIS), National Water Mission (NWM) etc. have also been taken. Thus, considering the impacts of agriculture to the Indian economy and food security, there is an urgent need to boost the efforts from all the stakeholders to reduce the impacts of climate change on agriculture.