Parul Sharga
Ph.D. Scholar, Tropical Forest Research Institute, Jabalpur, M.P.
Prashant Gigaulia 
Ph.D. Scholar, Biotechnology, JNKVV, Jabalpur, M.P.
Mamta Patel 
Ph.D. Scholar, IGKVV, Raipur, Chhattisgarh
Sneha Pandey
Ph.D. Scholar, IGKVV, Raipur, Chhattisgarh

The foundation of Indian economy greatly relies on agriculture and its allied activities. Worldwide, there is great concern on agriculture due to serious threats of climate change specifically for developing economy like India, where majority of the population depends upon agriculture for livelihood subsidence. Reasons for climate change is attributable to varied factors like deforestation, urbanization, industrialization , conversion of agriculture land for non allied agriculture activities , natural calamities and the most important is green house gases emissions. Agriculture and climate change are internally correlated with each other in various aspects, as climate change is the main cause of biotic and abiotic stresses.The average rise in global temperature is predicted to increase continuously until 2100 and this will be causing substantial economic losses (Malhi et al.,2021).The proportion of carbon dioxide in green house gases is maximum 411.29 ppm (WMO, 2020).The alarming increased rate of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere had caused increased crop respiration rate , evapo-transpiration thereby leading to higher insect pest attack and ultimately hampering the overall yield of the arable crops.
    Agriculture contributes large percentage of share in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) accounting with 16% along with providing employment opportunities (49%). These reveals that lack of potential capabilities in agriculture sector will be causing high inflation, political turmoil and stressful conditions among population practicing agriculture activities. Alteration in climatic conditions have been seriously affecting agricultural production and hence thereby challenging the food security for the upcoming future generations. Simultaneously, global food security depends on efficient food production as well as food access. Although records have been showing that food production worldwide is ample, still 10% of the population remains undernourished. The prevailing scenario of climate change is alarming and making call for food insecurity in the nearby future. These will cause increase in food prices. Due to climate change, the water requirements and uptake by arable crops and woody perennials will increase thereby leading to the problem of water scarcity in majority of the land use management systems. Lots of studies have been conducted worldwide on climate change impacts on the production of crops like maize, wheat and rice ( Howden and O’Leary,1997;Hoogenboom, 2000;Gbetibouo and Hassan, 2005; Aggarwal et al.,2006 & 2007; Dhungana et al.,2006; Challinor and Wheeler, 2008).
    Soil salinity negatively impact arable crops growth and development which ultimately leads to land degradation. Heavy contamination causes total loss of farmlands and desertification. Problem of soil salinity leads to removal of deep rooted vegetation causing soil erosion. Saline earth lowers productivity of agriculture crops, worsening farmer’s well being. When crops fail to take up water from the soil, they suffer from osmotic stress leading to drought. Also, salinity hampers nitrogen uptake by crops which lowers its development and thereby causing loss in productivity and fertility of land and crops. Overall, salinity causes reduction in floral and faunal diversity, shortening food chains and area of habitats.
    Conditions like that of leaching arise when excess of rainfall or other climate change phenomenon leads to uptake of water soluble nutrients out of the soil. This water rich in nutrients flows though rivers, streams and lakes affecting local faunal community drinking water. Phenomenon of leaching is of serious environmental concern particularly for agriculture and agriculture based activities because of use of chemicals in form of fertilizers, pesticides, weedicides which gets washed away with water and leads to cause pollution of water resources and affecting aquatic ecosystems. Thus, leaching caused due to change in climatic pattern ultimately leads to yield loss in agriculture crops.
    Food grain production in India was recorded 271.98 million tons in the year 2016-17.But, due to ever increasing population, there is great pressure on Indian farmer’s to produce more food grains to satisfy needs of population. Indian agriculture relies on rainfall for better food production .But predictions by Skymet reveals that monsoon will be weakening in coming years affecting production of cereals, oilseeds and pulses. The hydrological cycle present in the atmosphere is undergoing serious alterations continuously due to change in cropping pattern, land use patterns, exploitation of irrigation, drainage and ground water resources. Therefore, it’s the need of hour to start balancing the process in ecosystem which will stop the serious concern of climate change in environment.
    Spreads of pest and diseases round the globe has been reported due to climate change. Temperature, rainfall are the key driving factors for spread of pests and diseases. Example – Attack of desert locusts caused severe damage to agriculture crops particularly in Rajasthan.
    Rising CO2 concentrations and temperature provides suitable conditions for pathogens to survive (IPCC). Therefore, breeding pest and disease resistant varieties provides best eco friendly solution.
    Under various conditions of environmental stress, plant breeding provides dynamic approaches for better crop development. Revolutions in genetic engineering issues aid to overcome problems of food security by production of transgenic plants. Molecular and integrated plant breeding techniques are useful to develop the biotic and abiotic stress tolerance cultivars using genomics approaches like marker-assisted selection and genome wide associated studies.


    Various adaptation strategies need to be incorporated in public domain to combat the problem of climate change in agriculture. Some of them are providing timely and micro level weather forecasting to farmers with appropriate agro advisories. Water resources management needs to be done particularly in arid and semi arid regions of India. All states agriculture department along with collaboration with agriculture universities should work on research and development for evolving climate resilient varieties (Swarna rice) and should encourage judicious water management practices. Examination of climate change should be given importance when formulating any policy related to utilization of natural resources and energy usage. Evaluation of carbon sequestration potential of different land use systems needs to be done .Keeping these challenges in view, the Government of India, Ministry of Agriculture, and Farmers Welfare along with assistance with Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has taken forward policies, programmes that are implemented at village level. United Nations has declared 2020 as the “International Year of Plant Health” focusing on importance of raising global awareness on protecting plant health and reducing challenges of poverty, hunger among nations and ultimately boosting the economic development of nations round the globe.

References:

Aggarwal, PK., Banerjee, B., Daryaei, MG,et al.InfoCrop: A dynamic simulation model for the assessment of crop yields, losses due to pests, and environmental impact of agro- ecosystems in tropical environments II. Performance of the model. Agric Syst 89:47-67.

Aggarwal, PK., Kalra, N., Chander S et al.2006. InfoCrop: A dynamic simulation model for the assessment of crop yields, losses due to pests, and environmental impact of agro- ecosystems in tropical environments. I. Model description. Agric Syst 89:1-25.

Challinor, AJ and Wheeler, TR.2008. Crop yield reduction in the tropics under climate change: processes and uncertainities.Agric Forest Meteorol 148:343-356.


Dhungana,P., Eskridge, KM.,Weiss A, et al. 2006.Designing crop technology for a future climate:an example using response surface methodology and the CERS – Wheat mode. Agric Syst 87:63-79.

Gbetibouo, G. and Hassan, R.2005.Economic impact of climate change on major South African field crops. A Ricardian approach. Glob Planet Change 47:143-152.

Hoggenboom, G.2000.Contribution of agrometeorology to the simulation of crop production and its applications . Agric Forest Meteorol 103: 143-152.

Howden, SM., O’Lear, GJ.1997.Evaluating options to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from an Australian temperate wheat cropping system.Environ Modell Software 12:169-176.

Malhi, G.S., Kaur, M. and Kaushik, P.2021. Change on Agriculture and Its mitigation Strategies: A Review.Sustainability 13(3),1318.