Climatic Effects on Food Grain Productivity in India

Abstract

Climate change is likely to affect the agricultural production adversely and becomes more serious concern for developing countries because they do not have enough resources to mitigate the adverse effect of climate change. Statistics show that the amount of undernourished people is still alarmingly in developing world, so as the case of India. In India more than 700 million populations directly depend on agriculture and allied activities of which 52% directly dependent on climate-sensitive sectors like agriculture, forestry and fishery for their livelihood. Agriculture sector is most sensitive to climate change and it affects the food security of India. This study estimates the impact of climatic and non-climatic factors on food grain productivity to facilitate the development of appropriate farm policies to cope with climate change. Cobb-Douglas production for a panel of 13 states have been employed during 1980-2009.Empirical results show that climatic factors have a statistically significant impact on productivity of most of food grain crops but this effect varies across crops. Productivity of rice, maize, sorghum, and ragi crops negatively influenced with increase in actual average maximum temperature. Actual average minimum temperature has negative and statistically significant effects on wheat, barley, gram, and rice crops. Productivity of barley, rice, maize, and ragi crops lead to declined due to excessive rain and changing in rainfall pattern. Estimates suggest that the agricultural productivity in India is sensitive to climate change which is adversely affecting the food grain productivity and it may become a serious threat to food security in India. Major finding of present study indicates a need to adapt separate policies for various crops to mitigate the adverse effect of climate change in India. The results also highlight the important of irrigation and optimum use of fertilizer to mitigate the adverse effect of climate change. The study also suggests that policy makers should ensure adequate and consistent pricing for the farmer’s product during the harvesting season.