Problems and Prospects of Cultivating Indigenous Flood and Brackish Water-Resistant Varieties of Paddy in the Context of Projected Sea Level Rise: A Case Study from Karnataka, India

Abstract

India has about 7500-km-long coastline. The coasts are among the highly productive ecosystems having a concentrated human habitation. About 20% of the country’s population (106.1 million rural population and 94.7 million urban population) lives in the coastal region. A large share of the land use in the Indian coast mainly comprises of agriculture (42.3%) on which 48.5% of the population depends for their livelihood. Coastal India is also one of the most vulnerable regions of the world likely to be impacted by the climate change as per the recent IPCC report (AR5, IPCC). A major impact of climate change will be on the food security as agriculture activities are vulnerable to increased frequency and strengths of cyclones, storm surge, coastal flooding and submergence due to sea level rise and sporadic extreme rainfall events. And this is especially applicable for water-dependent crop such as rice, a staple food of India. The additional intrusion of salinity in soil and water because of increased frequency of tidal surges has compounded the challenge of cultivating paddy in the coastal areas where they render the land unfit for paddy cultivation. Only the local deepwater and brackish water-resistant varieties of paddy can withstand flooding and salinity intrusion; these indigenous varieties of paddy are ‘insurance crops’ in the wake of climate change and sea level rise. However, cultivating these resilient varieties is fraught with various challenges even though they have proved to be pest-free and nutritious besides other unique health benefits. With a couple of cases from coastal districts and the Varada river basin of the state of Karnataka, India, we show that though the demand of resilient varieties is on the rise, due to lack of government support, poor market prices, misdirected research, unsustainable irrigation projects and introduction of high-yielding varieties of seeds, the local farmers are discouraged to cultivate local resilient varieties. It is crucial for government departments to work in tandem with farmers, local stakeholders and private players (in PPP model—public-private partnership model) to increase the adaptive capacity of the farmers and be more climate resilient in the process.