Abstract
This paper provides an estimate of the impact of climate change on agricultural gross domestic product in India. Climate change is now an established reality, and the unusual weather patterns being observed in various parts of the world in the last 30 years is unequivocally due to variations in temperature and rainfall. The long-term trend pattern of the temperature and rainfall in India is studied, which clearly shows a distinct rise in mean temperature and declining trend rainfall after 1980. ARIMA analysis is used to generate the predictive values for temperature and rainfall, which are then used as explanatory variables along with nonclimatic variables to estimate the impact on agricultural output using an augmented Cobb-Douglas production function. The paper clearly establishes a clear and positive correlation between climate change and loss of agricultural output. The trend pattern of long-term productivity growth factor in agriculture is also showing a declining trend, which is due to unfavorable climatic and nonclimatic factors. Climatic parameters like El Niño and sea surface temperature have emerged as key determinants of monsoon rainfall in India. The agriculture sector in India has been adversely affected by rise in mean annual minimum temperature and shown a positive correlation with the changes in monsoon rainfall and mean annual temperature.
Highlights
The persistent increase in annual mean minimum temperature is a negative factor for agricultural growth.The coefficient is negative and significant (5%) and estimates that for every 1% increase in annual mean minimum temperature, the AGDP falls by 1.73%
Every 1% increase in rainfall leads to 0.24% increase in output.This is true because large parts of India are still dependent upon monsoon rainfall and almost 70% of the area is nonirrigated
The adverse impact of climate change impact in India is no different from the global trend and events like El Niño and environmental degradation have amplified the negative effects of climate change
Summary
In 2009, which was another severe drought year, annual GDP declined from 5 to 6% (Aggarwal, 2003).The total area under crop production fell from 635 lakh hectares in 2008 to 563 lakh hectares in 2009. Climate change combines with the effects of El Niño, as warmer temperatures lead to more water vapor being held in the atmosphere. This leads to higher El Niño–induced floods and droughts on a much wider scale than normal (Duncan, Dash, and Atkinson, 2013). The El Niño years in 2002 and 2009 recorded a 10-15% drop in agricultural production and created drought conditions in most parts of India (Gupta, Sen, and Srinivasan, 2012)
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