affirms the general conclusions reached by the IPCC. Asseng et al. (2015) use an
amalgam of 30 different models to argue that for global wheat cultivation, each
increase in average temperature of 1 °C will result in a loss of global production of
6 %. Naturally, all reported forecasts deserve caution. However, the consensus of
this sizable number of studies confirms that cereal production capabilities at a
global level will be impaired by the ongoing effects of global warming.
Several important observations are necessary to be made in conjunction with the
results reported by the IPCC. First, it is significant that the tropical zone bears the
more immediate negative effects from climate change. The tropics currently contain
slightly less than 50 % of the world’s population but a considerably larger proportion of global under-nutrition. Moreover, within the tropics, there are generally
high proportions of agriculturally-dependent households in populations. Within the
large rural population of the tropics, own-consumption of foods by smallholder
farms provides a major source of food access. Therefore, the projected negative
effects on cereal yields in the tropics will have a direct and highly consequential
impact on global under-nutrition and food insecurity. Second, the IPCC’s focus on
yield needs to be placed in broader agri-societal contexts. In most production areas
of the tropics, land and water shortages mean that effects of climate in reducing
cereal yields cannot easily be compensated by bringing more land into agricultural
production, or applying additional water through expanded irrigation or groundwater schemes.
Contextualizing these issues in the Indian context highlights the highly problematic implications of climate change. The maintenance of national production
levels for wheat and rice exerts massive significance for India’s food security.
Although cultivation of these crops is distributed across all States and Union
Territories, the role of production surpluses from north-western India has vital
importance for the national system as a whole. Large surplus volumes from Punjab,
Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh are purchased by the Food Corporation of India
to be stored and then transported nation-wide via the Public Distribution System
(PDS) and ancillary food security programs. Yet the agro-environments for the
rotation rice–wheat cultivation regime of north-western India are already facing
severe degradation, and modelling by Ericksen et al. (2011) suggests that it will be
a future hotspot for intensified climate-stress.
Ericksen et al. (2011) identify north-western India as a global hot spot of
climate-stress for food availability because of its combination of key vulnerabilities.
It has high exposure to climate change, because shifts in temperature spikes and
more uncertain precipitation may imperil the maintenance of the reliable crop
growing period for wheat–rice cultivation. Climate change will generate more
extreme heat days, more intense rainfall patterns and a potential weather-induced
shortening of the growing season that will curtail cropping patterns. As the IPCC
noted: “half of the wheat-growing area of the Indo-Gangetic Plains could become
significantly heat stressed by the 2050s” (IPCC 2014: 504). It has high sensitivity to
climate change because of the dominance of this single cultivation regime across
the landscape. And, it has poor coping capacity, which Ericksen define in terms of
existing food insecurity measured by childhood stunting rates of >40 %.
14
B. Pritchard
amalgam of 30 different models to argue that for global wheat cultivation, each
increase in average temperature of 1 °C will result in a loss of global production of
6 %. Naturally, all reported forecasts deserve caution. However, the consensus of
this sizable number of studies confirms that cereal production capabilities at a
global level will be impaired by the ongoing effects of global warming.
Several important observations are necessary to be made in conjunction with the
results reported by the IPCC. First, it is significant that the tropical zone bears the
more immediate negative effects from climate change. The tropics currently contain
slightly less than 50 % of the world’s population but a considerably larger proportion of global under-nutrition. Moreover, within the tropics, there are generally
high proportions of agriculturally-dependent households in populations. Within the
large rural population of the tropics, own-consumption of foods by smallholder
farms provides a major source of food access. Therefore, the projected negative
effects on cereal yields in the tropics will have a direct and highly consequential
impact on global under-nutrition and food insecurity. Second, the IPCC’s focus on
yield needs to be placed in broader agri-societal contexts. In most production areas
of the tropics, land and water shortages mean that effects of climate in reducing
cereal yields cannot easily be compensated by bringing more land into agricultural
production, or applying additional water through expanded irrigation or groundwater schemes.
Contextualizing these issues in the Indian context highlights the highly problematic implications of climate change. The maintenance of national production
levels for wheat and rice exerts massive significance for India’s food security.
Although cultivation of these crops is distributed across all States and Union
Territories, the role of production surpluses from north-western India has vital
importance for the national system as a whole. Large surplus volumes from Punjab,
Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh are purchased by the Food Corporation of India
to be stored and then transported nation-wide via the Public Distribution System
(PDS) and ancillary food security programs. Yet the agro-environments for the
rotation rice–wheat cultivation regime of north-western India are already facing
severe degradation, and modelling by Ericksen et al. (2011) suggests that it will be
a future hotspot for intensified climate-stress.
Ericksen et al. (2011) identify north-western India as a global hot spot of
climate-stress for food availability because of its combination of key vulnerabilities.
It has high exposure to climate change, because shifts in temperature spikes and
more uncertain precipitation may imperil the maintenance of the reliable crop
growing period for wheat–rice cultivation. Climate change will generate more
extreme heat days, more intense rainfall patterns and a potential weather-induced
shortening of the growing season that will curtail cropping patterns. As the IPCC
noted: “half of the wheat-growing area of the Indo-Gangetic Plains could become
significantly heat stressed by the 2050s” (IPCC 2014: 504). It has high sensitivity to
climate change because of the dominance of this single cultivation regime across
the landscape. And, it has poor coping capacity, which Ericksen define in terms of
existing food insecurity measured by childhood stunting rates of >40 %.
14
B. Pritchard