Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
to give these uncertainties due importance while assessing the
impacts of possible climate change on crop productivity for for-
mulating response strategies.
10.9
Mitigation and adaptation strategies
Examination of relatively recent weather of the last century at
many parts of the country indicates warming trends, although
they may not be statistically significant, but there are enough
indicators to suggest a modest increase in CO
2
and tempera-
ture. In spite of the uncertainties about the precise magnitude
of climate change on regional scales due to scenarios and crop
models on impact assessment, an assessment of the possible
impacts of climate change on India's agricultural production
under varying socio-economic conditions is important for for-
mulating response strategies, which should be practical, afford-
able and acceptable to farmers. The identification of suitable
response strategies is the key to sustainable agriculture. The
important mitigation and adaptation strategies required to cope
with anticipated climate change impacts include adjustment in
sowing dates, breeding of plants that are more resilient to the
variability of climate and improvement in agronomic practices.
10.10
predicted climate change impacts on
agriculture
The predicted changes to agriculture vary greatly by region and
crop. The findings for wheat and rice are reported here.
Wheat
production
•
The study found that increases in temperature (by about
2°C) reduced potential grain yields in most places.
Regions with higher potential productivity (such as
northern India) were relatively less impacted by climate
change than areas with lower potential productivity (the
reduction in yields was much smaller).
•
Climate change is also predicted to lead to boundary
changes in areas suitable for growing certain crops as
evidence has shown for wheat.
•
Reductions in yields as a result of climate change are
predicted to be more pronounced for rain-fed crops (as
opposed to irrigated crops) and under limited water sup-
ply situations because there are no coping mechanisms
for rainfall variability.
