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Climatic Trends, Cropping Pattern Shifts, and Migration of Rice in India
The rice area in India has shown a mild shift, both temporally and spatially—from the rain-fed eastern belt to the drier north-west, served by controlled irrigation—despite a declining trend of rainfall observed in both the regions. The shift is part of the broader changes in land use.
The authors thank FASAL/RTISA team members Alka Singh and Yashika Rani of the Institute of Economic Growth for their cooperation and the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Government of India for funding.
To restrict global warming to below (preferably) 1.5°C relative to the pre-industrial era, 196 parties in Paris (2015) had proposed to put forward their “nationally determined contributions” (NDC). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2021) report calling for “immediate, rapid, and large-scale” reductions of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions was a further “wake-up call” (Gulati 2021) consistent with the visualisation of 2030 by the Conference of the Parties (CoP) 26 (UNCCCUK 2021) for both mitigation and adaptation. Despite a lack of unity among the signatories (Arora et al 2018), apprehensions raised by actual climate events created a resolve to curb climate change to protect the human societies from its devastating and irreversible effects.
India’s promise to reduce the “GHG intensity” represented an intention of not compromising growth (MoEF&CC 2021). The rephrasing of the commitment from “phase out” to “phase down” of coal, in the protracted negotiations, was attributed to India, among a few, and the target date of 2070 for net-zero emission by India was seen as too distant. With a large agricultural sector and its small farms, India is highly vulnerable to climate change.
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