Climate change is draining India’s farmersClimate change is impacting the rural population since the last few years. The major impact is through shifting of monsoons and sudden extreme

Climate change is draining India’s farmers

Abdelsatar Hetieta

2019

Climate change is impacting the rural population since the last few years. The major impact is through shifting of monsoons and sudden extreme climate events (floods/cyclones),” Farhan told the Investigative Journal by Internet Messenger.

In India, some of the world’s most vulnerable farmers struggle with the effects

of climate change.

It is early on a July morning in the village of Selana, Udaipur district, in India’s Rajasthan state. One of India’s finest safari resorts is just 15 kilometers away, in the touristic center of Selana, but everyone in this neighborhood is living in a hut. Syed A A Ishaqi Farhan, 30 years old , then- director of climate change policy and research at a New Delhi-based NGO, Development Alternatives, sat on a mattress under a shed as he attempted to explain to some farmers in their local language new ways to overcome drought created by climate change. “Climate change is impacting the rural population since the last few years. The major impact is through shifting of monsoons and sudden extreme climate events (floods/cyclones),” Farhan told the Investigative Journal by Internet Messenger. India is the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases after China and the United States, and the second most populous country in the world, after China, with 1.3 billion people. India’s per capita emissions – mainly due to burning coal, to rice paddy, and to cattle - are less than half the world average but its large population makes for a high total.1 Every time a conference is held anywhere in the world on climate change, India is in the forefront. Not a day passes in India without an event related to climate change. As TIJ saw in a recent visit, the Government of India is taking action on a number of fronts. It is expanding the cultivation of millions of trees and is trying to reduce dependence on fossil fuel generation. This is supported by the presence of NGOs run by activists who are aware of the risks of climate change.

1 https://www.carbonbrief.org/the-carbon-brief-profile-india

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The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN (FAO) gives India good marks for dealing with hunger.² “During the second half of the decade, India reduced the number of undernourished by 13 million, although the number of undernourished people in the rest of the developing world rose by 34 million.” The Indian government and non-governmental organizations here work well to overcome the problem of climate change, but that’s not enough, because the problem of global warming cannot be dealt with by one country in isolation. Even in small villages, where the problems of lack of rainfall, floods, etc. are discussed, then directly or indirectly, the world’s responsibility for global warming and carbon emissions is also in question. The FAO, which operates in more than 130 countries around the world, has compiled devastating statistics on the impact of climate change, especially in the developing world. The proportion of damage to agriculture from

climate change and disasters in developing countries in ten years (2006 to 2016) was 26%. Losses in the agriculture sector are linked to the ever-increasing spread of hunger in the world. The percentage of undernourished people increased from 10.7% in 2016 to 10.8% in 2018. “Much of the increase in hunger can be attributed to rising conflicts, and climate-related impact is often exacerbated,” says the FAO. The FAO – which has operated in India since independence in 1948- is collaborating with the Indian government to improve the environment in general and agricultural conditions in particular. For example, the FAP has worked in a joint venture with India’s National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), the South Asia Pro-Poor Livestock Policy Programme (SAPPLPP). In Saad, a remote Indian village in Jhabua district of Madhya Pradesh with 350 households largely relying on farming as their sole source of income, SAPPLPP introduced backyard poultry farming.

Farmers in a meeting about new ways to cultivate in Khara village, India.

2 http://www.fao.org/3/y5650e/y5650e03.htm

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3 http://www.fao.org/3/CA2607EN/ca2607en.pdf4 http://www.climatechange.mp.gov.in/en/rainfall

Madhya Pradesh state is located about 800 km south of New Delhi. About

72.6 million people live in the heavily agricultural state, according to the 2011 census. Madhya Pradesh is known as the “tiger state” because it is rich in wildlife, with many mountains and valleys. But it is also a place where many farmers are facing environmental stress. The per-capita income of about $870 in 2013 was the sixth lowest among India’s 29 states.In the main train station of Bhopal, capital of Madhya Pradesh, TIJ met some farmers by chance. (Yes, the Bhopal that was the site of the horrific December 1994 Union Carbide gas leak, the world’s largest industrial accident that killed at least 3700 people.) One of them is Raja. He is forty five years old, married with three children.

Wearing brown pants and a dark yellow shirt, Raja is short, bends down while speaking and seems tired. As he has for many years, this spring Raja planted five hectares with sorghum, but sudden rain flooded the soil, and ruined the crop. Previously, his area had been afflicted by drought. Experts say flooding and drought are two sides of the same coin. As the Official Madhya Pradesh Climate Change Knowledge Portal puts it, “The distribution of the world’s rainfall is shifting as our climate changes. Wet areas may become wetter, dry areas drier, storms more intense, leading to more chaotic weather around the world”.⁴ It adds: “According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an increase in the average global

temperature is very likely to lead to changes in precipitation and atmospheric moisture, including shifts towards more extreme precipitation during storms. As the lower atmosphere (the troposphere) becomes warmer, evaporation rates increase, which leads to an increase in the amount of moisture circulating. When the troposphere has more moisture, more intense precipitation occurs, thus potentially triggering more flooding over land. Conversely in other areas, warmer temperatures may lead to increased drying accelerating the onset of drought”.Such climate variability made Raja unable to repay a loan obtained from the Agricultural Bank this year or next year. He will need to reschedule his bank debts which now amount to $7,000.

Farmers discussing climate change in Jalore district, Rajasthan, India.

The Front Lines in Rural India

“More than 3 billion people, 80% of the poor, live in rural areas, with around 2.5 billion dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods.” FAO’s Work on Climate Change, 2018³

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5 https://www.edf.org/6 https://twitter.com/narendramodi/status/1147485301255942145

One of the solar power plants in India. Some companies have increased their activity in India to produce electricity from clean energy. The Indian Government encourages this path.

“I can live and take care of my family but it’s hard to save the money I need to continue farming,” he says.Raja adds: “Can I compensate for the losses next year?’ No one knows!”He has hopes that a dam near the village will be completed soon, protecting it from sudden flooding, and ensuring storage of satisfactory amounts of water that can be relied upon in agriculture during the dry season. The most important step taken by India in the last ten years was to cooperate with many international organizations to raise awareness among millions of farmers about the aspects of climate change. An American NGO, the Environmental Defense Fund or EDF⁵ is one of these organizations. EDF says that since 2009 it has been working on the ground with its partner, the Fair Climate Network (FCN), one of the largest networks of NGOs in India, to facilitate low-carbon rural development, educate business and political leaders, and engage local communities. This means that a farmer like Raja thinks about how to store water in the flood season, and then turns it into drip irrigation and a spraying system in

the dry season. But he faces many obstacles. First, the repayment of debts he has incurred, and secondly financing the provision of necessary pumps and the process of extending the spraying and sprinkling hoses. Even for those who do not have

the ability to communicate with the outside world through modern means of communication, NGO volunteers provide necessary information to improve farmers’ conditions and expand their awareness that this problem is not specific to a particular village, but to the entire world. The Internet and the spread of

social networking sites have allowed the world, and decision-makers in India, to become aware of Raja’s problems. Increasingly, Indian government officials address the magnitude of climate change in their speeches. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi participated in planting a tree with a group of citizens in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh state, on July 6, tweeting to his 48 million followers: “Together, we will protect our environment. Urging you all to plant more trees and contribute to a better planet.”⁶ The key signatories to the 2015 Paris Agreement, including India – but not the US, which withdrew in 2017- are committed to reduce earth’s temperature by 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to temperatures prevalent prior to the Industrial Revolution. If the world wants to prevent global warming by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial era levels, oil and gas production should fall by 20% by 2030 and thereafter by 55% by 2050.There are hundreds of Indian organisations that specialise in studying the living conditions of farmers negatively influenced by the harsh climate wave.

Increasingly, Indian government

officials address the magnitude of climate change in

their speeches.

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7 https://www.cdp.net/en

A growing population has significantly contributed to environmental damage as more and more mouths need to be fed.”

Ali Imran Naqvi

According to the latest report by London-based NGO CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project), more than 200 of the world’s largest listed companies expect climate change to cost them an approximate total of USD 1 trillion, as they will endure a large part of the troubles in the upcoming five years. CDP specialises in tracking carbon emissions, and is a member of an allianceof pressure groups, fund managers, central banks and politicians who believe that global warming is a threat to the financial system.⁷ “Reducing carbon emissions is good for business and beneficial to society,” said Nicolette Bartlett, Global Director of Climate Change. The procedures carried out by the organisations within this alliance include the reduction of carbon emissions as described in the Paris Agreement; the alliance generally encourages reliance on electricity from renewable sources.TIJ contacted Gensol Group, one of India’s major investors in green energy. It has an advisory portfolio of more than 18 gigawatts, compared to the total solar power installations of more than 28 gigawatts in India. Ali Imran Naqvi, a VP of Gensol Group, describes Indian Prime Minister Modi, who was just re-elected to a second term, as a “strong defender of green energy.” His government has promised to ensure 175 gigawatts of entirely renewable energy by 2022, more than double the current capacity, says Mr. Naqvi.

Ali Imran Naqvi, Vice President, Gensol Group

Reducing Carbon Is Good For Business

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8 https://www.ndtv.com/gurgaon-news/india-air-pollution-gurugram-worlds-most-polluted-city-6-others-in-india-in-top-10-study-20026849 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(18)30261-4/fulltext10 https://www.pv-magazine.com/2019/02/20/indian-government-approves-6-48bn-for-rooftop-and-farmland-solar/11 https://blu-smart.com/

The World’s Most Polluted City

Air pollution caused by the burning of coal is inescapable in India.

“India is the third largest source of carbon after China and the United States”, says Mr Naqvi. “ 61% of power in India is generated by coal.” Of the ten most polluted cities in the world, seven are in India. These ten cities are Gurugram (India), Ghaziabad (India), Faisalabad (Pakistan) Faridabad (India),Bahiwadi (India),Noida (India),Patna (India),Hotan(China), Lucknow (India),and Lahore (Pakistan).⁸ Gurugram, the world’s most polluted city, is a financial and industrial center of almost a million people. It is located about 30 km southwest of New Delhi.The average level of air pollution in Gurugram in 2018 was more than 13 times the allowable level under WHO guidelines, although air quality has slightly improved since the previous year. According to a study by Lancet Planetary Health, air pollution in India caused 1.24 million deaths in 2017. This represents 12.5 per cent of all deaths in India recorded in that year. More than 51 percent of those deaths were of people under the age of 70. Of the total, about 670,000 died due to air pollution in general, while 480,000 died due to indoor air pollution due to the use of solid cooking fuel.⁹ The World Bank estimates that air pollution costs India about 8.5% of its GDP. With the economy expected to

grow rapidly, increasing industrialisation may exacerbate the problem. But the Indian government seems intent on tackling the issue and has launched a new national clean air program within the framework of the “war on pollution.” In India, coal-generated electricity is a big part of the pollution problem. It is the cheapest source of electric power. According to a study by Saudi think tank King Abdullah

Petroleum Studies and Research Center, ”What constrains India’s ability to make climate change a priority is its need to expand access to low-cost {green} energy.” The study adds: “Currently, India has around 57 percent of installed coal-fired capacity in its electricity mix. This is needed to fuel its rising energy needs. Further, India

imports the majority of its crude oil. However, environmental concerns related to air and water pollution will continue to exert pressure on the Indian government to reduce its reliance on coal and crude oil.” “Electricity is the main source of energy in urban areas,” Mr. Naqvi says, “All of our equipment operates on electricity generated mainly from thermal power plants. These thermal power plants operate with fossil fuels (mostly coal) and are responsible for huge emissions of greenhouse gases and other contaminants.” In addition, says Naqvi, cars, buses, and trucks mainly powered by gasoline or diesel are the usual means of transportation. He notes that the Indian government has also approved the construction of 50 solar power plants with a total capacity of 40 GW and approved financial support totaling more than Rs. 46,000 crores (USD 6.48 billion) by 2022 to promote the use of solar energy among farmers, and to enhance a solar energy on rooftops program.¹0

Whether there is any cooperation between the Gensol Group and local communities in India to address the climate change issue, the Gensol Group is taking the responsibility upon itself to fight climate change: it recently unveiled its fleet of entirely electric vehicles for urban mobility in India.

India is the THIRD LARGEST source of carbon after China

and the United States”, says Mr Naqvi. “ 61% of power in India is

generated by coal.”Of the ten most polluted cities

in the world, SEVEN are in India.

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If there is no significant reduction in the sources of carbon emissions, the suffering of farmers will be

exacerbated across continents, regardless of state or continent responsible. As a result, the world will experience more food deprivation than now. The majority of residents of shantytowns on the outskirts of major cities around the world came from areas that relied on fields, crop farming and livestock. The story of Raja is similar to the stories of many other struggling small farmers in other developing countries. According to the FAO, more than 800 million people on the planet are suffering from undernourishment in 2017, including some 515 million in Asia, and around 256 million in Africa. In another report, FAO said that 14.8% of Indians were undernourished in 2015-2017, a slight improvement over the 15.3% rate in 2014-2016 but a big improvement compared with the 22.8% rate in 2003-2005. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) says that of 10 selected countries for which changes over time were analysed, India and Cambodia reduced their Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI)

values the fastest—and did not leave the poorest groups behind.¹² One group working towards that goal, Development Alternatives, is serving the village of Khara, at the Sanchore Complex, located in Jalore district, in Rajasthan, India, 225 km from Selana. Mr. Farhan of Development Alternatives sits with a group of farmers, discussing the way to plant the field and provide irrigation water in spite of bad weather conditions. “Certainly this climate change has been affecting the rural population for several years”, he says. “The main reasons for this impact on the lives of villagers are the monsoons on the one hand, and on the other the sudden events resulting from climate change, such as floods and hurricanes.” “In urban areas, the impact of climate change is not significant on the middle and upper classes, but it is horrific that the poor areas in urban areas are those affected by climate change.” “They are badly affected, both for those who have migrated from Indian rural areas or slum dwellers.”

FAO said that 14.8% of Indians were undernourished in 2015-2017, a slight improvement over the 15.3% rate in 2014-2016 but a big improvement compared with the 22.8% rate in 2003-2005.

12 http://hdr.undp.org/en/2019-MPI

The Specter of Hunger

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Finding New Careers

Mr Naqvi notes that India’s growing population of 1.3 billion people has drastically contributed to

environmental damage, as more and more mouths need to be fed. (While the population growth rate is now down to 1.13%, 117th in the world, compared with Pakistan’s 2% and 0.7% in the United States, more than 50% of the population is under 25. India is predicted to become the world’s most populous country by 2024.) “To put things in context, keep in mind that the available arable land is limited, leading to the need to cultivate high-yield crops to boost agricultural production from a given plot of land.” However, those high-yielding crops require large amounts of fertilisers, which in turn leads to more nitrous oxide emissions, both from fields where used and from the fertiliser industry. “In some villages, the drying up of local water sources has led farmers to abandon agriculture,” Mr. Farhan of Development Alternatives says. “There is a change in crop patterns in a few places, including a shift to less dense crops. There is wider use of sprinklers and other water-saving systems. Another major change is farmers leaving farming and becoming workers in the construction or other sectors.” Farmers can rarely have access to other countries. In fact what is happening is that migration is within the country; moving to another state. However, India receives migrants from Bangladesh who have lost their livelihoods due to sea level rise or other climate impacts.Migration between Indian states due to climate change is obvious. But there is little evidence that India’s population is migrating to other countries to escape climate change. “At any time, farmers cannot move to other countries,” says Vidyasagar Gorityala, the assistant director of agriculture at the state seed farm in the state of Tilangana. In an online discussion, Dr Suresh Chandra Sharma, Former Officer on Special Duty (Energy & Climate Change) Government of India, adds: “Small farmers are poor and after hard work of months together they don’t get enough livelihood and migrate to cities in search of livelihood as a labourer or some small household jobs.”

Vidyasagar Gorityala, Assistant Director of Agriculture, State Seed Farm, Sadasivpet, SangareddyDist, Telangana State, India

“Time has come that world should be treated

as one and can exist under one umbrella only.”

Vidyasagar Gorityala

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13 https://borgenproject.org/farmers-suicide-in-india/https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/45-farmers-commit-suicide-each-day-in-india--3438714 https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/realitycheck/andhra-farmer-chooses-death-over-debt-the-agricultural-crisis-in-india/15 https://borgenproject.org/tag/poverty-in-india/

The Phenomenon of Farmer Suicide

Some farmers take more extreme means than migration to end their problems.

In 2010, India’s National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) reported that more than a quarter of a million farmers killed themselves between 1995 and 2010, with an average of 45 farmers per day and almost 16,000 in 2010 alone.¹³ Plagued by uneconomically small landholdings and water scarcity, reliant on emergency loans at exceedingly high interest rates, many Indian farmers don’t have access to modern technologies and are vulnerable to bad weather and market shocks. Many are also ashamed of their failure to provide for their families. One of the most famous and saddest suicide stories of farmers in Indian villages happened in Andhra Pradesh, in the south of the country, in August last year: the story of a farmer named Mallappa. Mallappa had been living with his wife, son and three daughters. One day he told his family that he was going to a nearby city to buy some farm equipment. But he never returned. His body was found in the same farm where he spent most of his life a day later. Before taking his life, he

bought everything that his family would need for his funeral. The Times of India said that Mallappa had been continuously facing crop failures since the past few years due to a recurring drought” said to have been the worst in 54 years.”¹⁴ Mr. Farhan writes, “Suicides among farmers reflect a complex

reality in the Indian rural agriculture sector, with drought and sudden flooding on the one side destroying agriculture, and the accumulation of debt on small farmers on the other, and therefore some resort to get rid of their lives. The origin of the

suicide phenomenon among farmers goes back to the early nineties of the last century.” Farmers with holdings under 2 hectares “made up 75 percent of the 5,650 suicides that the National Crime Records Bureau recorded during 2014; further data points out that in 2,474 suicides out of the studied

3,000 farmer suicides in 2015, the victims had unpaid loans from local banks.”¹⁵ In 2017, reports mentioned the suicide of 34 farmers in the state of Maharashtra in Western India; the news was attributed to “lack of rain.” From time to time, farmers’ groups organise protests to demand support for crop cultivation, covering the costs of agriculture, and improving working and living conditions. “At this stage,” says Mr. Farhan,“India needs technical support in terms of new varieties of seeds, new technology to provide

desalination at low cost, etc. As a growing economy, India may be able to finance to relieve the burden, and some targets related to adaptation with the climate conditions. However, it requires efficient human and technological capabilities.”

In 2010, India’s National Crime Records Burean

(NCRB) reported that more than a quarter of a million farmers killed themselves between 1995 and 2010, with an average of 45

farmers per day and almost 16,000 in 2010 alone.

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Every year we see people migrate because of the drought and the failure of agriculture. Millions leave their villages in search of temporary paid work

Ranjan Panda

Mr. Ranjan Panda, an activist at the Climate Change Network in India, said his country may now be going

through one of the worst heat and water scarcity waves in its history. “The news from across the country confirms that we are already in a water emergency,” he added in emailed comments to The Investigative Journal. The problem does not only hit farmers, their huts and fields, but also affects the homes and lives of residents on some coasts like the eastern coastal state of Odisha in the Bay of Bengal, where people are being driven a few kilometers from their lands to avoid rising sea levels. Mr. Panda, who was returning from Odisha when we emailed two months ago, said that seven villages with several thousand people face displacement from their homes and farm fields. The state government has given them small compensations. However, he notes, “that is not enough to rebuild houses.” Worse yet, “There is no compensation for lost crop fields.” In such cases, the state government follows its own laws on rehabilitation and resettlement, but those efforts alone are not enough to address the magnitude of the losses people endure due to climate change. “They are the climate refugees,” says Mr. Panda. “Global communities must ensure better compensation from climate funds for such communities to enable them to recover their homes, land and livelihoods.”Mr. Panda continues, “There are people who died because of heat waves; women were forced to walk more miles than usual to fetch drinking water etc.”

“Farmers generally suffer more than others,” says Mr. Panda. “People generally migrate because of the drought and the failure of agriculture. Millions leave their villages in search of temporary paid work. However, reports have shown this time that these migrations have considerably increased,” he adds.

Ranjan Panda, Convenor, Combat Climate Change Network, India

Water Emergency

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16 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_Fani17 https://www.livemint.com/news/india/cyclone-fani-centre-announces-rs-1000-crore-more-for-odisha-after-pm-narendra-modi-s-review-visit-1557135374310.html

We need a combination of adaptation and mitigation solutions e.g., use of solar pumps for irrigation in drought prone areas.” Yasir Ahmad

Interviewed in the first half of June by email and Linkedin messages, Yasir Ahmad, a partner and leader of the

Sustainability and Responsible Business Advisory in India (PWC), recalled with bitterness the scale of damage caused by floods in Kerala and Cyclone Fani in Odisha. He believes that the reason is climate change. In the beginning of last May, Cyclone Fani started with strong winds. Hours later, wind in Odisha coast reached a speed in excess of 250 kilometers per hour. The cyclone brought about tremendous damage to coastal areas inEastern India. Many buildings were destroyed, trees uprooted, electricity lines cut, hundreds of thousands of people were displaced and 89 people were killed, 72 in India and 19 in Bangladesh. The loss of life in India was mitigated by advance preparations made by the government. $2.46 billion was estimated as required to repair infrastructure in Odisha.¹⁶More than 6000 schools and 1000 health care facilities were destroyed.¹⁷ Cyclone Fani was preceded by a wave of floods in August last year in Kerala state, in southern India. Without warning, amounts of rain never seen for hundreds of years started to fall. Dams were unable to cope with the water flows. The floods caused landslides and destroyed crops. This led to a tragedy, as thousands of people were forced to leave their homes. About 1.2 million others had to take refuge in temporary relief camps and some 400 people were killed. Mr. Ahmad said that data from the past ten years in the country show the impact of severe climate disasters in terms of loss of life and property caused by

repeated natural disasters. These “reduced agricultural yield and ground water depletion, loss of livelihoods of forest/agri dependent population, increased migration in drought- prone areas etc.” “The villages of northeastern India, Sundarbans, and northern and central India suffer significant loss of livelihood options leading to large-scale migration to safer areas.” He added that recent examples are the Kerala flood and Cyclone Foni. The problem is not merely the extreme rainfall, but also the scarcity of rain at other times. Floods and droughts both kill crops and both are increasing with climate change. The tragic situation of farmers affected by climate change around the world requires concerted efforts amongst global organisations to find solutions. Technical cooperation agreements and agricultural agencies need to exert more efforts to create sustainable forest management, sustainable water management, and other innovations that primarily rely on clean energy. “We need a combination of adaptation and mitigation solutions, for example, use of solar pumps for irrigation in drought-prone areas,” says Mr. Ahmad.

Yasir Ahmad, Partner, Sustainability and Responsible Business Advisory in PWC, India

Kerala Floods & Cyclone Fani

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Under the Paris Agreement, India is committed to increasing its forests by 5 million hectares before 2030

to combat climate change. In a record environmental campaign initiated in India in 2017, a national voluntary project kicked off to plant more than 66 million trees, with the participation of approximately 1.5 million men, women and children in the massive farm campaign. Seedlings were planted in 24 districts along the Narmada river basin in Madhya Pradesh State. Volunteers have planted more than 20 different types of trees. A voluntary activity like this inspires the rest of the population in other Indian states to plant large areas of trees, as in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, near the Himalaya Mountains, where thousands of volunteers attained a world record by planting more than 50 million trees in one day. Dehradun, the capital of India’s Uttaranchal state in the Himalayan foothills, hosted the International Forestry Day this year on March 19. (The United Nations has chosen March 21 for International Forestry Day). “Forests will be more important than ever before as the world’s population rises to 8.5 billion by 2030,” says the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change in India on the occasion. In other semi-arid regions, the state of Telangana boasts Hyderabad, a sprawling hub for technology, with historic monuments, modern shopping centers and fine restaurants, but the green patch of villages in the state face major problems related to climate change. Amongst the state’s famous mountains and plateaus, many institutions

are trying to help farmers. People here have been aware of the problem of climate change and its impact on the population for a long time. For example, the ICRISAT Group was established to operate near this region in 1972. Headquartered in Hyderabad, the group is a non-profit, non-political organisation conducting agricultural research for development in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa with a wide range of partners worldwide. The ICRISAT group covers the semi-arid tropics of an area of 6.5 million square kilometers in 55 countries, with more than 2.6 billion people, some of whom are amongst the poorest in the world. ICRISAT has offices in Mali, Nigeria, Niger, Kenya, Malawi, Ethiopia, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, and is a member of the CGIAR System Organization; a global research partnership for a secure food future. ICRISAT and its partners help empower those poor people overcome poverty, hunger, malnutrition and a degraded environment through better and more flexible agriculture. “The impact of climate change after 2005 is worse than before”, says Mr. Vidyasagar Gorityala, the assistant director of agriculture at the state seed farm in the state of Telangana Emailing last month, he went on to describe reduced rainfall and a change in rainfall patterns, which affects crop productivity, especially in rain-fed agriculture. “The impact of climate change makes smallholder farmers vulnerable; some farmers (in Telangana) are turning to becoming hired workers while others migrate to urban areas to work in menial jobs,” said Gorityala.

In some villages drying up of local sources of water has led to farmers giving up agriculture.”Syed A A Ishaqi Farhan

Green CoverSyed A A Ishaqi Farhan, Manager in Climate Change Policy and Research at Development Alternatives

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India would like to be seen as

a leader on climate change,

particularly when compared to

other emerging economies such

as China, whose targets are

treated as a benchmark. This wish

is balanced against its need to

continue its economic expansion.

This diagram explaina fossil fuel

carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions

in India, China and the United

States of America. India tends

to take a conservative approach

to international commitments.

(Source: King Abdullah Petroleum

Studies and Research Center).to

take a conservative approach to

international commitments. (Source:

King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and

Research Center).

The share of India’s installed electricity capacity (GW), 2018. (Source: King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center).

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Local Discussions and Global Responsibility

Gorityala says: “There is a need for a high-profile international organisation that formulates implementable policies, which should be compulsory around the world. It is time for the world to be treated as a single entity.” But this would require a world government. Obviously, India alone, no matter what steps it implements, cannot save the world from global warming. The world is in dire need of stringent policies to conserve the environment, and hold to account companies and factories that are leaders in the creation of global warming. But India is making progress on several fronts. India is suffering from climate change. But actions by the government and non-governmental organizations can help ease the burden on millions of farmers. Electricity production policies for large cities and rural resource management can reduce pollution in the country. The topic of global warming is an international responsibility. India is aware of this. It is trying to address the problem in cooperation with the international community and local organizations.

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Abdelsatar Hetieta

ABDELSATAR HETIETA is an award-winning Egyptian journalist, novelist and political analyst specializing in Middle Eastern and North African affairs.

He was the bureau chief of the London-based Asharq al-Awsat newspaper. Hetieta reported from the front lines of conflict zones and in countries such as Yemen, Sudan, Libya, Morocco, the Persian Gulf, the Horn of Africa and Iran. He has authored a number of books, including Sheikh Nabil’s Resthouse, about the Arab fighters in Afghanistan and how most of them failed to integrate upon returning from the battlefield to their communities in the early ’90s.

His novel The Autopsy revealed the extent of corruption in the circles of the ruling regimes of third-world countries. His novel titled A Night in the al-Malki Prison won first place in the Al Rewaya competition in Egypt in 1997. The manuscript shed light on the problems the Bedouin tribes faced on the Egyptian–Libyan borders. Hetieta himself is of Bedouin origin, having been born into the Awlad Ali tribe of Egypt and Libya.

Investigative Journalist specializing in Middle Eastern and North African Affairs

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