Pratap S Birthal

National Centre for Agricultural Economics and Policy Research

New Delhi, India

In the past century,

India warmed by 0.68°C, that is 0.07 °C per decade ; and at an accelerated

rate (0.08 °C) in the past four decades.

India experienced many extreme climatic events such droughts, floods,

cyclones and heat waves. Between 1876 and 2009 India experienced a total

of 40 droughts of which 24 occurred until the mid-1960s, and 16 occurred

between 1965 and 2009. In the latter period, five droughts were of severe

droughts.

Agriculture is more sensitive to climate change, hence will be more

threatened by it than any other activity.

By end of 21st century, with climate change crop yields will lower by 10 to 40%.Given the little scope to increase production through area expansion, this will reducefood supplies, which will threaten food security.

Small farmers and poor consumers will suffer more from climate change because of

heavy dependence on agriculture and lack of financial resources for mitigation and

adaptation

Exposure to climate change: recent trends in temperature and precipitation

Impact of climate change on agricultural productivity (aggregate and crop-wise)

Adaptation strategies: Farm level, community level, Intermediate level institutions

Recent Trends in Climate Variable

All India Humid Semi-arid

temperate

Arid-

semi-arid

tropics

Mean monthly temperature (°C)

Annual 0.30*** 0.22*** 0.30*** 0.34***

Rabi 0.38*** 0.28*** 0.26*** 0.45***

Kharif 0.31*** 0.24*** 0.31*** 0.33***

Total seasonal rainfall (mm)

Annual -17.93 -16.62 -95.94*** 7.11

Rabi 0.57 31.41*** -1.31 -10.31**

Kharif -22.90** -53.14* -94.95*** 11.95

Production

function or

crop

modeling

Scientific controlled experiments. Fail to

realize the behavioral response of

farmers.

Ricardian

approach

Ceteris paribus, the regional differences in land value or

productivity are determined by the differences in their

climatic conditions. Assumptions : land value a reflection

of PV of profits, while it is not because of market

imperfections. Unable to capture adjustment.

Panel data

approachTime is an important dimension of

climate change, vulnerability and

adaptation.

We use fixed

effect panel

data

approach to

estimate

effects of

climate

change on

agricultural

productivity.

Panel data suggests that

individuals, firms, states or

countries are heterogeneous.

In panel data (fixed effect) approach the

geographical fixed effects control for all

local characteristics that may be correlated

with climate, which cannot be captured in

cross section studies

More informative data, more variability, less

collinearity among the variables

long term dataset are better able to capture

the evolution of climatic variables and

the resultant adaptation by farmers

What we have used?

District level data on area and production of 19 crops along with other

variables (GCA, irrigated area) for the period 1969 to 2005 for 200

districts at 1970 base. These crops constitute around 90% of the gross

cropped area in the districts

We estimate total value of output of these crops multiplying their

production with farm harvest prices of the triennium ending 2004-05.

VOP then divided by the total area under these crops to obtain the gross

revenue per hectare or agricultural productivity

Rainfall and temperature were extracted from 1 x 1 degree high resolution

daily gridded data for the period of 1969–2005

Two main growing seasons, viz. kharif and rabi . We specify growing

period mean values of temperature and total rainfall in our model

Subscript i and t denotes district and time.

Variable description

Y = Gross returns per hectare

KT = Average kharif temperature (June to September)

RT = Average rabi temperature (October to February)

KR = Total kharif rainfall (June to September)

RR = Total rabi rainfall (October to February)

IR = Area irrigated (%)

D = District dummies

T = Time dummies (from 1969 to 2005)

•Reduces excessive variation or noise

•Regression coefficients are estimated in

proportionate terms and are easily

interpreted as per cent change

log-linear

form

•Non-linear effects of

temperature and rainfall

Quadratic and

interaction

terms

• irrigation and its interactions with

weather variables

• Time dummies for technological

adaptations……

Accounting

for adaptive

response

The model is estimated for all India as well as three homogeneous

agro-climatic zones, viz. humid, semi-arid temperate, and arid and

semi-arid tropics.

Some

observations

from panel

regressions

Excess rainfall in kharif as well as rabi is

damaging

Interactions of rainfall and temperature have a

statistically significant impact on agricultural

productivity

Irrigation mitigates harmful impacts of higher

temperatures as well as low rainfall

Estimated results

All India Humid Semi-arid temperate Arid-Semi-arid tropics

Without

irrigation

With

irrigation

Without

irrigation

With

irrigation

Without

irrigation

With

irrigation

Without

irrigation

With

irrigation

RT -0.0395 -0.0313 -0.0370 -0.0311 -0.02178 -0.0194 -0.0368 -0.0276

KT -0.0545** -0.0452** 0.0159 0.0156 0.0138 0.0116 -0.0883** -0.0749**

RR 0.00019** 0.00025** -0.00003 -0.00001 0.00015 0.00017** 0.00043** 0.00048**

KR 0.00018** 0.00018** 0.00009** 0.00009** 0.00005** 0.00006** 0.00025** 0.00024**

Estimated marginal effects:

Temperature Rainfall

Wheat -0.0577** 0.0002182**

Chickpea -0.0642** 0.0000813

Barley -0.0054 0.0004244**

Rape- Mustard 0.0101 -0.0000676

Climate impact by crop: Marginal effect : All India

Rice -0.0910** 0.000266**

Sorghum -0.0592** 0.0001096**

Groundnut -0.0704** 0.0002022**

Cotton -0.0188 0.000091**

Pigeon pea -0.1112** 0.0002432**

Months 2010-39 2040-69 2070-99

Temp

(degrees) A1F1 B1 A1F1 B1 A1F1 B1

DJF 1.17 1.11 3.16 1.97 5.44 2.93

JJA 0.54 0.55 1.71 0.88 3.14 1.56

SON 0.78 0.83 2.41 1.49 4.19 2.17

Rainfall

(%)

DJF -3 4 0 0 -16 -6

JJA 5 7 13 11 26 15

SON 1 3 8 6 26 10

Scenario All India Humid Semi-arid temperate Semi-arid tropics

Without

irrigation

With

irrigation

Without

irrigation

With

irrigation

Without

irrigation

With

irrigation

Without

irrigation

With

irrigation

2010-39

A1F1 -6.07 -4.76 -2.11 -1.57 -1.19 -1.03 -7.58 -6.01

B1 -5.69 -4.33 -1.85 -1.31 -1.04 -0.86 -7.07 -5.49

2040-69

A1F1 -18.26 -14.31 -5.96 -4.41 -3.15 -2.73 -22.98 -18.21

B1 -9.90 -7.61 -3.62 -2.67 -2.09 -1.76 -12.15 -9.46

2070-99

A1F1 -32.10 -25.11 -9.55 -6.90 -5.08 -4.37 -40.87 -32.43

B1 -16.27 -12.67 -5.06 -3.66 -2.79 -2.38 -20.57 -16.25

Projected Impacts

A1F1 B1Chickpea -30.9 -16.4

Wheat -27.7 -14.7Rice -22.5 -10.7Groundnut -17.5 -8.3Sorghum -16.1 -7.8Pigeon pea -14.2 -6.5Cotton -3.9 -1.8Barley -2.3 -1.3Rapeseed-mustard 4.8 0.5

Projected impacts by crop to

2080-2099

In other words, a year will be a drought year if temperature goes

above its long term average and rainfall goes below its long term

average

The deviations are standardized by district-specific SD, and DI

(severity) is expressed as the product of the standardized

deviations.

This specification: lays relatively more stress on larger deviations,

both in rainfall and temperature.

The index is estimated for kharif season and for rice growing

districts

Advantages of the index: (1) based on both the degree of dryness

and hotness; (2) contains local weather information (3) provides

severity of drought for each district

Drought index: degree of hotness and dryness

Distribution of districts by DI (lower

truncation at DI 0.1)

1969-1987 1988-2005

1969-

2005

Severity

% of total

events

% of total

area

affected

% of

total

events

% of

total

area

affected

% of

total

events

% of

total

area

affected

Low

(0.1<DI<0.5) 50.2 48.8 61.2 62.1 55.8 55.5

Medium

(0.5<DI<1.5) 27.9 28.8 30.7 27.9 29.3 28.3

High

(DI>1.5) 21.9 22.5 8.1 10.0 14.9 16.1

Total 100 100 100 100 100 100

Incidence of drought and its severity

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

196

9

197

0

197

1

197

2

197

3

197

4

197

5

197

6

197

7

197

8

197

9

198

0

198

1

198

2

198

3

198

4

198

5

198

6

198

7

198

8

198

9

199

0

199

1

199

2

199

3

199

4

199

5

199

6

199

7

199

8

199

9

200

0

200

1

200

2

200

3

200

4

200

5

per

cen

t

Low Medium High

Distribution of droughts by severity

Drought and rice productionLow

intensity

Medium

intensity

High

intensity

Period (1969-1987)Average yield (Kg/ha) 1303 1145 984

Yield loss (Kg/ha) -57.8 -113.5 -234.0

Per cent loss -4.4 -9.9 -23.8

Period (1988-2005)Average yield (Kg/ha) 1801 1633 1627

Yield loss (Kg/ha) -8.9 -93.2 -143.3

Per cent loss -0.5 -5.7 -8.8

Climate impacts will largely be driven by rise in temperature.

Frequency of extreme climatic events has increased

Arid and semi-arid tropics will be more impacted by climate

change

Irrigation is important to minimize harmful impacts of climate

change

Agriculture is becoming resilient to droughts because of

emphasis of R&D on breeding for drought-tolerance,

improvements in management of water resources diversification

Layers of resiliency

Farm levelCrop and varietal adjustment – drought tolerant and

extensive root crop

Crop management practices - changes in inputs, timings,

tillage

Intercropping and mixed cropping

Irrigation practices,

Crop rotation, crop choice, crop and Income

diversification

Crop harvesting and processing

Agro forestry – Agri-silvi-horti-pastoral system

Social Group action - social networks, information

dissemination, migration

SHGs, community projects, coping strategies,

Local water management techniques, in-house

conflict resolution,

TechnologicalMicro-irrigation, conservation agriculture, in-

situ, ex-situ, water harvesting, flood mitigation,

land drainage, Phonemics and other frontier

technologies

Institutional and policyGovernment policy and program (NAPCC,

DPAP, DDP, IWMP, PDS, MNREGA)

Agro and weather advisory – Information

access

Evidence based policy

Strengthening governance structure

Adaptation to climate

change to improve

food security

Rice: Sahbhagi Dhan, drought-tolerant and Swarna-Sub 1,

submergence tolerant varieties

Wheat: To adjust to the rising temperature heat-tolerant wheat

varieties like DBW 14, DBW 16, Raj 3765, Lok 1 and GW 322 etc.

Chickpea e.g. JG11, that are tolerant to heat being promoted in the rainfed

areas.

Returns to investment : 5-10 per cent higher crop yield and an internal rate

of return of 29-167 per cent on investment in drought-tolerance rice

research

Benefits of drought-tolerant wheat and maize (Kostandini, 2008) and

groundnut (Birthal et al., 2012) has brought out that adoption of drought-

tolerant varieties can reduce production risks by 30-50%.

Risk benefits :drought-tolerant groundnut :yield advantage of 23 %;

Reduction in yield variability by 30 %. Benefits due to (i) yield improvement

(65%) and (ii) reduction in variance (35%).

Irrigation can reduce harmful effect of climate change on agricultural

productivity by 20-25 per cent

In India about half of the cropped area receives irrigation, mostly through flooding,

implying considerable loss of water. Irrigation efficiency of surface water resources

:35 to 40 per cent, for ground water, it is about 65-75 per cent.

Drip irrigation technology in horticultural crops can save water by 12-84 per cent,

reduce energy consumption by 29-45 per cent and improve crop yields by 7-98

per cent

Area under micro-irrigation has not exceeded 4 million hectares, as

against the potential of 42 million hectares (Palanisami et al.,

2011).

The 12th Five-Year Plan targets bringing 10.1 million hectares under

micro-irrigation

Laser land levelling; Zero tillage; SRI; Directed Seeding are other options to

improve water use efficiency.

Hydrogel:, a water-absorbing hydrogel has been developed, which when

applied to the soil, imbibes available water, retains it over a period and

releases it for use by plants when they need. This technology has been

evolved specifically to suit the hot tropical and semi-tropical climates. Only

a small quantity of gel (2.5-3.75kg/ha)

The gel has the ability to co-exist with fertilizers, notably urea, is free of

any toxin and can last at least for one full crop season. Additionally, this

product has been found to improve physical health of soil by loosening the

compact soil to enhance crop yields.

In farmers’ fields, the gel has been found to improve seed germination and

reduce requirement of fertilizers and an improvement in crop yields by

about 20 per cent.

Agriculture is likely to become knowledge-intensive. Farmers willdemand varied types of information to take rational decisions inrespect of choice of crops, inputs and technologies to adapt toclimate change.

Net returns/ha

Number of sources Sub-

marginal(0.5ha)

Marginal (0.5-1.0ha)

Small (1.0-2.0ha)

Medium (2.0-4.0ha)

Large (>4.0ha)

All

Non user 10482 9024 8393 7765 6158 7959One source 9871 9957 8547 9709 6982 8826Two sources 12679 10599 9928 9256 8063 9580

Three or more sources 14561 12398 10307 9785 9623 10209

Any source 11024 10146 9078 9569 7784 8994

• Only about 40 per cent of the farm households in India have access to agricultural information mostly from fellow farmers and input dealers.

• One lakh+ Extension workers, more than 600KVKs, Kisan call centres; mobile telephony

Total expenditure (Rs billion) at current prices

As % of total budget

As% of GDP

2006-07 701.7 12.1 1.72007-08 911.8 12.9 1.9

2008-09 1387.2 15.4 2.62009-10 1569.4 15.4 2.7

Poverty alleviation,

livelihood and food

security

74.27%

Health improvement

and prevention of

diseases

7.59%

Land development,

drought proofinh,

irrigation and flood

control

7.40%

Agriculture and

allied sectors

7.50%

Risk financing

1.42%

Forest, biodiversity

and wildlife

conservation

0.75%

Water resources

0.69%

Disater

management

0.27%

Coastal,

marine and

ocean

management

0.11%

A farmer will adapt when the cost of adaptation is less than the

benefit of avoiding impact of climate change. It is thus important to

understand the cost-benefit aspect of implementing any adaptation

measure. If the cost of adaptation outweighs the benefits then such

a measure would not be viable.

There are not many studies that look at this aspect.

Usually, the literature ends a study by suggesting a

menu of measures without relevant cost-benefit

estimates of the same.

It may not be possible to itemize and monetize all the possible

current and future costs and benefits in the present context.

However, it will still provide as a guiding tool to have some

measures such as averted loss of crops production, cost of

implementing a new irrigation system, etc.

Thank You...