Variations in weather patterns are damaging crops in India, a veteran farm leader said. “The changing weather in the past few years has been causing steep damage to farmers. Earlier, we would begin sowing in the month of June but it has now shifted to July,” Gunvant Patil Hangargekar, general secretary of the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee, said at a Moneycontrol panel discussion on the weather office’s predictions.
Successive crop failures due to rising temperatures and unseasonal rain and hail have dealt a blow to farmers. Wheat production in India declined from a record 109.59 million tonnes in FY21 to 106.84 million tonnes in FY22 as heat waves hit the country as early as March 2022.
According to the India Meteorological Department, 2022 was the fifth-warmest year since 1901. Temperatures were 3-8 degrees Celsius above normal for more than six days in March and April, breaking records in many parts of the country.
The unusually high temperatures adversely affected grain-filling and caused early aging, reducing crop yields, especially that of wheat, IMD noted in its annual report for 2022.
Wheat, paddy affected
According to the government’s Economic Survey 2022-23, the year 2022 witnessed an early heat wave during the wheat-harvesting season, adversely affecting its production.
A decline in the sown area for paddy (3.8 lakh hectares less in the kharif season 2022-23 vs 2021-22) due to monsoon vagaries was also noted in the Economic Survey.
This year, an early heat wave swept through the country in February and unseasonal rainfall led to crop destruction towards the end of March. While rainfall was deficient in June, there were excess showers in July.
“July rainfall in Maharashtra was upward of 70 percent. This led to damage of crops, especially soybean, which is a sensitive crop,” Patil said. “Though IMD predictions have improved over the years, there is still a long way to go for them to reach the farmers at the right time.”
Farmers, too, are not yet aware and need to be encouraged to keep track of localised predictions, he added.
Watch the full discussion here.
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