The change in climate pattern has not only affected the lives of people living in urban and rural areas, but nowadays its impact on India’s agriculture sector is more than ever before. According to experts, the country’s farm sector is considered highly vulnerable to shifts in weather patterns as half of the cropland is dependent on rainfall, drawing around 60 per cent of the farmers to the core of the climate-proofing debate.
“Farmers are reeling under extreme weather events and need protective measures to ensure that India’s largest occupational sector – agriculture – does not decline further. We are seeing an increased severity and frequency of extreme weather events. Farmers in India are facing the double blow of agrarian distress and extreme weather events as a result of climate change,” said CSE’s Director General Sunita Narain. The environmentalist further added that a series of measures, including better protection mechanisms are needed to support them.
According to a report released by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) titled ‘Lived Anomaly’, the area affected by freak weather events in 2015 jumped to 18.33 million hectares from 0.35 million hectares in 2013, resulting in crop loss worth Rs 20,453 crore. The findings come three days ahead of a climate conference in Paris where 196 countries will decide a new pact providing a mechanism to tackle global warming between 2020 and 2030.
The report also underscores the inability of the Indian system to cope with climate change weather events on farmland and points out that compensation is given for a maximum of two hectares of land, is less than 50 per cent of the actual damage on that plot and comes several months after the actual loss.
“The quantum of compensation decided is most of the times a political decision rather than a scientific one,” the study says, adding that the loss is measured by local revenue officers on the basis of oral evidence and often without visiting all the affected areas.
The study comes on the heels of unseasonable rains and hailstorms destroying crops in parts of northern, eastern and central India this year. Crop insurance, touted as a solution to provide respite to farmers hit by weather anomalies, is almost a non-starter. The CSE said just 20 per cent of farmers are covered under the Centre’s crop insurance schemes that basically provide a safety net for farm loan dues in case of crop damage.
Speaking about the timeliness of the consultation, Jai Kisan Andolan’s Yogendra Yadav said, “I recently travelled from Karnataka to Haryana and met farmers everywhere who have suffered losses due to extreme weather events. I thought somebody should be documenting and discussing this, and then I learnt about CSE’s report and the consultation. This is very timely.”
Speaking on behalf of farmers, Yudhvir Singh said that the current relief and compensation method being used in India was devised in 1863 by the British.
“It was not for the purpose of awarding relief and compensation but for waiving lagan. It is a big surprise that India still uses such an old and inappropriate system for assessing crop loss,” said Singh, who represents All India Coordination Committee of Farmers.