Climate Change and Mitigation Options for Sustainable Agriculture in Rajasthan

Abstract

Climate change is the greatest challenge before the global society impacting the ecology, economy, and society in several ways. Rajasthan has reason to be concerned about the impact of climate change as its large population depends upon climate-sensitive sectors like agriculture and forestry for livelihood. Rajasthan shows a significant warming of 0.5 °C which is comparable to the global mean trend of 0.3 °C and all India mean of 0.4 °C per 100 years. The climate of Rajasthan has exhibited a continuing trend towards desiccation, particularly after the severe drought of 1987. For example, in February and March, 2006 and 2008, there was high-temperature stress, and there was heavy frost in January, 2007 and 2010. In December and January, 2008–2009, there was unusual rise in temperature, and the yields of wheat and mustard were adversely affected. Recently, in kharif, 2009, there was severe drought in most of the areas causing large-scale crop failure in western Rajasthan. Impact of climate change on agriculture is visualized in terms of increased problem of water stress in major kharif crops; heat stress in wheat, barley, mustard, and gram; occurrence of frost in mustard, gram, and pea; virus- and root-related diseases; sucking pests, mites, leaf minor, and gram pod borer in selected crops; emergence of new weeds; etc. These are creating suboptimal and stressful environment for agricultural crop production. Green agriculture, water-saving agriculture including water harvesting and land treatment for in situ moisture conservation, adoption of integrated farming system, use of crop simulation models, emergency response system, and crop and weather insurance are some of the mitigation options available for ameliorating adverse impact of climate change for sustainable agriculture.