KEY TRENDS
• Due to climate change, the hydrological cycle is likely to be altered and the severity of droughts and intensity of floods in various parts of India is likely to increase*
• Simulations using dynamic crop models indicate a decrease in yield of crops as temperature increases in different parts of India*
• Malaria is likely to persist in many states and new regions may become malaria-prone and the duration of the malaria transmission windows is likely to widen in northern and western states and shorten in southern states*
• Climate change is likely to exacerbate the degradation of resources and socio-economic pressures*
• Yields from rainfed agriculture could be reduced by up to 50 per cent by 2020 in some countries**
• In Central and South Asia, yields could decrease by 30 per cent by 2050**
• About 30% of global emissions leading to climate change are attributable to agricultural activities, including land use changes such as deforestation***
• The underlying causes of the most recent increases in food prices are complex and include factors such as increased demand from rapidly growing economies (especially China); poor harvests due to an increasingly variable climate (e.g., the Australian drought); the use of food crops for biofuels (e.g., maize for bioethanol); higher energy and fertilizer prices; low food stocks; speculation on the commodity futures market; and, in response to the high food prices, restrictions imposed on agricultural commodity exports by a number of significant exporters (e.g., Argentina, India and Ukraine) to protect their domestic consumers***
* Climate change, sustainable development and India: Global and national concerns by Jayant Sathaye , PR Shukla and NH Ravindranath, Current Science, Vol. 90, No. 3, 10 February 2006
** Climate change: Building the resilience of poor rural communities by IFAD
*** April, 2008 Report of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development, http://www.agassessment.org/index.cfm?Page=IAASTD%20Reports&ItemID=2713:
