How climate change led to a marked shift in Uttarakhand’s agricultural landscape

A new study titled ‘Water and Heat Stress in the Hills: How Climate Change is Shaping Uttarakhand’s Agriculture Landscape’ has found that traditional crops are giving way to more profitable ones like pulses and spices due to climate change.

 

The three key findings that indicate a marked change in the state’s agricultural landscape are: a decline of 27 per cent in land used for traditional food grains over the last decade; severe drop in yields including a 70 per cent drop in potato production; and farmers turning to more resilient and profitable crops like pulses and spices.

 

The production of wheat, paddy, and millets is declining as pulses like pigeon pea and chick pea, and maize emerge as climate-resilient crops. The cultivation of spices is booming with turmeric cultivation doubling and chillies up by 35 per cent.

 

There were 94 extreme weather days in 2023 which damaged 44,882 hectares of farmland in the state.

 

Over the last decade, as cultivated land has dropped by more than 27 per cent; overall yield had fallen by over 15 per cent.

 

Major crops like wheat, paddy, and potatoes have suffered significant losses, both in cultivated area and yield.

 

There is a shift from traditional crops like paddy and wheat to horticultural crops. GI-tagged food grains like ramdana (amaranth), pigeon pea (pahadi toor), horse gram (gahat) and black soybean (kala bhatt) saw an increase in both cultivation area and yield.

 

The crash in the yield of potato indicates that the cooler climes to which the crop is suited are changing. Over the past five years, potato yield dropped by 70.82% from 367309 metric tonnes in 2020–21 to 107,150 metric tonnes in 2023–24. The cultivated area also fell sharply from 26,867 hectares in 2020– 21 to 17,083 hectares in 2022–23, a yearly decline of 36.4%.

 

Potatoes in the hills are entirely rain-fed, and rainfall has become increasingly erratic. Typically, potatoes are planted in early March and harvested by May–June in the hills, while in the plains, they are planted in October–November and harvested by January. Earlier, there used to be 2-3 spells of snow falls between October and December. Now the lack of timely rain, reduced snowfall between October and January, rising temperatures, and occurrences of hail have all negatively impacted potato cultivation.

 

The overall shift in crops indicates that farmers are making efforts to cope with rising heat and water scarcity.

India