Climate Change and Pulses: Approaches to Combat Its Impact

Abstract

The global climate change and extreme weather fluctuations are the most threatening challenges of this century to agriculture and allied activities. Impact of climate change due to increased intensity and frequency of storms, drought and flooding, precipitation variance, and increase in temperature and CO2 have serious implications for global food production and food security (IWGCC in Adaptation to climate change in agriculture, forestry, and fisheries: perspective, framework, and priorities, 2013). Agriculture in India will be under severe constraints as the productivity of crops is predicted to depress by 10–40 % by 2080–2100. This will not only put a severe strain on national economy but will also pose a formidable challenge to achieving food security at the national level. Most of the standard climate models predict rise in temperature across the regions where pulses are grown. With rising temperature, the host of biotic and abiotic stresses is predicted to become more severe in terms of their scope and spectrum, and adversely impacting productivity and stability of production of pulse crops. Such a scenario emanating from the climate change presents a veritable challenge to food and feed economy of the country as large population of India is heavily dependent on agriculture for food and income. To meet these emerging challenges of climate change, there is an urgent need for developing policy framework for implementing approaches for mitigation and adaptation to combat adverse impacts of climate change and climate variability on Indian agriculture especially dryland areas which account for 40 % of the total food production of the country. Therefore, a strong institutional support is required to strengthen the existing research system and infrastructure exclusively targeted to rainfed crops like pulses which are more vulnerable to climate change. Crop production management technology involving judicious use of integrated disease and pest management combined with improved agricultural practices may be used to develop integrated packages for pulse crops to ensure sustainable production under adverse impacts of climate change.