Impact of climate change on productivity of food crops: a sub-national level assessment for India

Abstract

Climate change is considered as a potential threat to sustainability of agriculture in India. Considering the importance of agriculture in the pursuit of the India’s development objectives, including the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations, understanding possible impacts of climate change on productivity of major food crops in the country assumes importance in developing appropriate policies and programmes for agricultural technology development and transfer in general and for climate change adaptation in particular. Such an understanding at a scale where most of the development planning is done will be more useful in policy planning. This paper analysed climate change impacts at district level for major food crops using the district level climate projections for two time periods viz., mid-century (2021–2050) and end-century (2071–2098). Yields of most crops are projected to decrease in a majority of districts during mid-century period. The yield impacts are deeper and wider during end-century period. The yield impacts are relatively smaller and even positive in case of rapeseed & mustard and soybean. Some of the policy implications emerging from this study are: (i) Efforts are to be targeted and prioritized in the districts where the yields are likely to suffer more (ii) Concerns related to abiotic stress, especially those related to heat/temperature stress, need more attention in crop improvement and natural resource management programmes and (iii) Considering the dimension of climate change along with other bottlenecks to sustainable agriculture in the research and development process is a desirable way of mainstreaming climate change in to economic development programmes.