Climate change to reduce wheat and rice yield by 20% in 2050

Tribune News Service

Karam Prakash

New Delhi, March 21

Climate change—in the coming years—is going to make a huge impact on one of the important sectors of Indian economy, agriculture. According to the study by the National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA), agri produce, in the absence of the adaptation measures, would plummet a great deal.

This was revealed by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in the Lok Sabha on Monday. 

Rain-fed rice yield in the country is projected to reduce by 20 per cent by 2050 and by 47 per cent by 2080, while wheat yield by 19.3 per cent by 2050, and by 40 per cent by 2080 with significant spatial and temporal variations. Climate change is projected to reduce the kharif maize yield by 18-23 per cent by 2050.

“The Centre, through its various ministries and departments, continues to assess the impacts of climate change: taking into account new data and increased scientific knowledge on the subject,” said the Environment Ministry in Lok Sabha, in a reply to a question on the steps taken by the Centre to study the impact of climate change.  

However, the Agriculture Ministry in another reply said the ICAR-Indian Institute of Wheat and Barley Research, Karnal, and All India Coordinating Research Project on Wheat and Barley, were working on developing climate-resilient varieties. They were also keeping a strict vigil on disease situation in the country, said the ministry.

Listing out the new varieties, the agriculture ministry in the Rajya Sabha said: “From 2014 to 2023, a total of 156 wheat varieties have been released. The wheat varieties such as DBW303 and DBW187 have an average yield of eight tonnes per hectare. Further, 28 bio-fortified varieties of wheat have been developed by ICAR which are rich in multi-nutrients. These are DBW327, DBW332 and DDW47, etc.”

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