As climate change sets in, farmers in villages of Balangir district, Odisha, acknowledge that they have noticed a broad change in weather patterns in the past decade. A newly inaugurated canal has created a positive impact.
By Darpan Bhalla
The phenomenon of climate change has made profound and multifaceted impact on farming, affecting almost all aspects of agriculture including changing the crop yields, altering availability of water, increase in pests and diseases, and put a threat on overall food security. Many studies have successfully documented the effects of climate change on crop yields. Schlenker and Roberts (2009) have found that each 1°C increase in temperature can reduce crop yields by 10-17% for wheat, rice, and maize.
Farmers in villages of Balangir district, Odisha, acknowledge that they have noticed a broad change in weather patterns in the past decade. A newly inaugurated canal has created a positive impact. However, access remains limited, and the canal too is dependent on rainfall levels in the region. The introduction of drought resistant hybrid seeds indicates a silent shift towards climate resilient farming as it requires less water, as compared to the earlier sown indigenous varieties, and produces a higher yield.
Most farmers migrate to nearby cities during the non-farming season and engage in construction work as the income drawn from agriculture remains meagre to sustain their families. Data reflects that schemes like PMKISAN and PMFBY have reached intended beneficiaries. However, much needs to be done in this regard. In all, it is important to accept that focus of policymaking should be to take steps to tackle the root cause of problem i.e., climate change.
Silent shift to hybrids
Broadly around 8-10 years earlier there was use of indigenous variety of seeds in special regards to paddy however it took a greater amount of water and the yield remained less as well. With the introduction of hybrid variety yield seeds and the encouraged use of pesticides and fertilizers, there has already been a shift to farming which is adaptable to the changing weather patterns i.e., which is less dependent on rainfall and produces more yield in lesser number of days. However, a consensus was broadly identified among the respondents wherein they concurred on the indigenous variety possessing a “good amount of taste” as compared to the hybrid variety of seeds being made available by the government. In addition, the adoption of hybrid variety of seeds has made farmers incur more expenditure owing to the additional cost of buying fertilizers which earlier was produced within the home in the form of organic manure.
Presence of Canal
43 per cent of farmers, who had access to canal water reflected a certain kind of broad pattern regarding the perception of rain wherein they majorly had no significant problem with the delay in rainfall timelines. The lower Indra Dam project, inaugurated in 2019, has been a major irrigation push for the farmers of the region. However, the farmers have pointed to the irregularity in the supply of water. The canal is expected to be fully operational from next year (2024) and farmers are hopeful to have two crops in a year.
Canal irrigation raises agricultural productivity and especially the returns from the land. An exceptional feature of canals is that they create unique spatial changes in agricultural productivity that can last for decades after canals are built in any region. Decades after the building of a canal, landowners in those areas remain better off, presumably benefiting from the higher land rents due to the increased access to irrigation in that area.
The presence of the canal in the region notwithstanding, on a micro level not all fields get water from the canal due to an upland topography. Thus, farmers owning an upland field are still majorly dependent on rainfall. Those with a borewell or a well present on their field still stressed on the importance of rain as farmers solely cannot depend on this method of irrigation not only because it’s not sufficient for irrigating their fields but also because of the concern about depleting ground water table. It is pertinent to mention here that even the water in canal is directly dependent on rainfall levels in the region taking us to the conclusion that farmers are still directly dependent on rain for their crop.
Keeping up with the change
Farmers spoke of a slump in agricultural incomes and the inability of rural households to sustain on farming alone. The Odisha countryside is witnessing an emergence of what one can term “migrarian” livelihoods – where migration and agriculture form the major providers, accounting for over half the annual incomes of farming families. Our discourse touched on the decline in income and the resultant search for work mostly by migrating to nearby cities (like Raipur, Bangalore and Mumbai) where the majority work as labourers in the non-farming season. Many inter-state migrants from Western Odisha (about 26 per cent) find employment in the neighbouring state of Chhattisgarh; Raipur and Durg districts being the primary destinations.
It is important for the government to create opportunities within the region aiming for less people migrating to cities by incentivising crop diversification in the region which should help farmers combat the variations they have been experiencing in terms of climatic changes in the recent past. The impact of climate variability on agriculture would be on several variables such as quantity and quality of crops in terms of productivity, growth rates, the process of photosynthesis and transpiration rates, moisture availability in the soil etc. Food production is to be directly impacted by the changing weather patterns across the globe. Increase in the mean seasonal temperature reduces the duration of many crops thereby reducing the yield of the crop. The consequences of agriculture’s contribution to climate change, and mainly of climate change’s negative impact on agriculture remain severe and can have a great impact on food production threatening the food security.
Darpan Bhalla is a final year Political Science undergraduate student at Sri Venkateswara College, University of Delhi. This piece has been extracted from the internship report submitted by the author as part of the Abhijit Sen Rural Internship programme of National Foundation for India (NFI).
