NEW DELHI (AP) – Remarkably early, recorded temperatures in India lowered grain yields, raising questions about how the country can balance its internal needs with the ambition to boost exports. and pay deficits. Because of the Russian war in Ukraine.
There are large landfills in New Delhi, the capital of India. There have been fires in recent weeks. Schools in India’s eastern state of Odisha have been closed for a week, while schools in neighboring West Bengal are collecting oral rehydration salts for children. On Tuesday, Rajgar, a city with more than 1.5 million people living in central India, was the hottest in the country, with daytime temperatures reaching 46.5 degrees Celsius (114.08 Fahrenheit). Temperatures exceeded 45 ° C (113 ° F) in nine other cities.
But the heat in March – the hottest in India since logging began in 1901 – hampered the harvest. Wheat is very sensitive to heat, especially in the final stages, when its grains are ripe and ripe. Indian farmers sow in such a way that this stage corresponds to the typical spring in India.
Climate change has warmed India’s heatwave, says Frederick Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London. He said that before human activity can raise global temperatures, heat waves like this year will hit India almost once every half century.
“But now it’s a more common phenomenon – we can expect such high temperatures almost once every four years,” he said.
India’s vulnerability to extreme heat increased by 15% from 1990 to 2019. The Lancet Medical Journal report 2021. It hit the top five countries where vulnerable people, such as the elderly and the poor, are most exposed to heat . He and Brazil have the highest deaths from fever in the world, the report says.
Agricultural workers like Baldev Singh are among the most vulnerable. Singh, a farmer from Sangur in the northern Indian state of Punjab, watched his crops swell before his eyes as the usual cold spring quickly switched to restless heat. It has lost about a fifth of its harvest. Others are more lost.
“I’m afraid the worst is yet to come,” Singh said.
Punjab is India’s “wheat bowl” and the government has been promoting the cultivation of wheat and rice here since the 1960s. Overall, it is the largest contributor to India’s national reserves, and the government hopes to buy about a third of the shares this year from the region. But government estimates predict lower yields this year, and Devinder Sharma, an agricultural policy expert in the northern city of Chandigarh, said it would get 25% lower.
The story is the same in other major grain producing states such as Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.
In total, India will buy more than 43 million tonnes (US $ 47.3 million) of wheat in 2021. Sharma estimates this will range from 20% to almost 50% less.
Although it is the second largest producer of wheat in the world, only a small portion of its harvest is exported by India. It sought to take advantage of global delays in grain supplies following the Russian war in Ukraine and seek new markets for its grain in Europe, Africa and Asia.
This is not clear because of the difficult balance that the government must maintain between supply and demand. It requires approximately 25 million tons (US $ 27.5 million) of wheat for an extensive food welfare program that typically feeds more than 80 million people.
Before the pandemic, India had large reserves that far exceeded its internal needs: the buffer against the risk of famine.
These reserves were severely tested, Sharma said, by distributing free grain during the pandemic to an estimated 800 million people – vulnerable groups such as migrant workers. The program will last until September, but it’s unclear if it will continue after that.
“We no longer have such a surplus. . . “As exports increase, there will be a lot of pressure on the availability of domestic grain,” Sharma said.
The Federal Ministries of Agriculture and Trade of India did not respond to email requests.
In addition to India, other countries are also struggling with low yields, preventing them from helping off potential supply shortages from Russia and Ukraine, typically the largest and fifth largest exporters of wheat in the world.
Last month, China’s agriculture minister Tang Renjian said winter wheat harvests were likely to be minimal, preventing floods and delaying planting.
The Associated Press Department of Health and Science receives support from Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. AP is solely responsible for all content.
Source: Huffpost
