Climate changes and food security

in India

Presented by
Dr.R.Sindhu
IInd year Postgraduate
CONTENTS
 Introduction
 Food security
 How climate changes affects food security
 Food production
 Food access
 Urban poor
 Food absorption
 CCIS
 National agricultural insurance scheme
 Soil health card scheme
 Recommendations
 Conclusion
 References
Introduction
 For India, food security continues to be high on its list of development priorities because the
country's relatively high rates of economic growth have not led to a reduction in hunger and
undernutrition.

 India has failed to meet the

Millennium Development Goal of
halving the proportion of people who
About 12 Indian suffer from hunger
states fall under  Incidence of undernutrition has
the 'alarming' dropped only marginally from 210.1
category of the million in 1990 to 194.6 million in 2014,
Global Hunger
Index.
Shift towards fish & meat demand for foodgrains

 Low Agriculture productivity is the biggest issue.

 India’s cereal yields is much lower compared to other countries.
 FOOD SECURITY
World Food
Summit, “Food security exists when all
1996 people, at all times, have physical, social and economic
access to sufficient, safe and
nutritious food which meets their dietary needs
and food preferences for an active and healthy
life.”

Food
Food availability Utilization Stability
accessibility
How climate changes affects food security?

 Impacts crops, livestock, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture

 Cause grave social and economic consequences in the form of reduced
incomes, eroded livelihoods, trade disruption and adverse health impacts.

Summer – Drought- heat waves

Monsoon – Floods , Heavy Rains
Winter and severe cold
Milch cow: milk yield goes down in increased heat
or cold wave
Poultry: egg yield goes down
Fisheries: fish catch goes away
How climate change affects all the elements of the water cycle and
its impact on agriculture Source: FAO 2013
 Food production
 According to World Bank estimates, based on the International Energy Agency's
current policy scenario and other energy sector economic models,
For a global mean warming of 4°C, there will be a 10-percent increase in
annual mean monsoon intensity and a 15-percent increase in year-to-year variability
in monsoon precipitation.
 World bank 2013 predicts that droughts will pose an increasing risk in the
north-western part of India while southern India will experience an increase in
wetness.

Cruz et al. (2007)

Decline in precipitation and droughts in India has led to the drying up of

wetlands and severe degradation of ecosystems
Groundwater level in India (meters below the ground level)
 65 percent of India's cropped area is rain-fed.

Wheat sensitive Lobell et al

to (2012)
Rice climate
change
wheat growth in northern India is
highly sensitive to temperatures greater than
34°C

 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

Change (IPCC) report of 2007 0.5°C rise in winter
temperature is likely to reduce wheat yield by 0.45 tonnes per hectare in
India.

 Acute water shortage conditions, together with thermal stress, will affect
rice productivity even more severely
Food access
 Variation in the length of the crop growing season and higher frequency of
extreme events due to climate change and the consequent growth of output
adversely affect the farmer's net income.
 Climate change will also have an adverse impact on the livelihoods of fishers and
forest-dependent people.
 Landless agricultural labourers wholly dependent on agricultural wages are at the
highest risk of losing their access to food.
 In regions with high food insecurity and inequality, increased frequency of
droughts and floods will affect children more, given their vulnerability.

Rodriguez-
Llanes et al (2011)

Children exposed to floods during their first year of life presented higher levels of
chronic malnutrition.
 URBAN POOR

Urban food insecurity is also a critical issue because poor households from rural and
coastal regions typically migrate to urban areas for livelihood options.

Low-income groups residing in informal settlements which are often located in

areas exposed to floods and landslides and where housing is especially vulnerable
to extreme weather events such as wind and water hazards
Dasgupta
et al (2012)
Mumbai, Chennai & Kolkata are especially prone to bear
the brunt of climate change

Displacement, loss *Declined food

of livelihood or stock
damage to Food insecurity
*Increased food
productive assets prices
Child nutritional status in urban India (2014-15)
 Press Report on Drought
Rise in Extreme Weather Events
• Frequency of intense rainfall events has
increased over past 53 years.
• Extreme rainfall events also increased
over the west coast of India
(Analysis of 100
years of data; 1901-2000).
 FOOD ABSORPTION
 Change in climatic conditions could lead to a reduction in the nutritional quality
of foods due to elevated carbon dioxide levels.
 In India, where legumes (pulses) rather than meat are the main source of
proteins, such changes in the quality of food crops will accelerate the largely
neglected epidemic known as “hidden hunger” or micronutrient deficiency.
 India, children living in poor rural areas and urban slums are at higher risk of
morbidity and mortality from diarrhoeal diseases

URBAN POOR [piped water, sanitation, clean vector-borne diseases such as

drinking water, drainage systems, and heath malaria, dengue and
facilities] chikungunya.

High incidence of undernutrition due to poverty exposes the urban poor to diseases
linked to climate impacts, which in turn aggravates undernutrition and ill-health and
reduces the ability to adapt and build resilience to climate change.
 Soil Health Card Scheme
 launched by the Government of India in February 2015

Printed report that a farmer will be

handed over for each of his holdings. It
will contain the status of his soil with
respect to 12 parameters, namely N,P,K
(Macro-nutrients); S (Secondary-
nutrient); Zn, Fe, Cu, Mn, Bo (Micro -
nutrients); and pH, EC, OC (Physical
parameters). Based on this, the SHC
will also indicate fertilizer
recommendations and soil amendment
required for the farm.
Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare
http://soilhealth.dac.gov.in/
RECOMMENDATIONS

Adoption Of Sustainable Agricultural

Practices
 Better management of water resources must be a key feature of sustainable agriculture.
 Water supply management options such as new storages and water harvesting are important, especially in the
water-stressed regions of north-western India

STRATEGIES
 Increase irrigation efficiency
 Promote micro irrigation in water-deficient areas
 Better water resource infrastructure planning
 Restoration of water bodies in rural areas
Stronger emphasis on public health

 Despite the fact that the disease burden from vector-borne and
diarrhoeal diseases is very high in urban slums and tribal areas
of India, this area was overlooked when the original National
Action Plan for Climate Change (NAPCC) was formulated.

 The Ministry of Health is currently formulating a National Mission

for Health under the ambit of NAPCC but given the close
relationship between climate change, infectious diseases and food
absorption, public expenditure on health needs to be stepped up
drastically.
Enhance livelihood security
National Rural Employment Guarantee Act
(NREGA) of 2005

 Increasing rural wage

 Reducing gender wage gaps
 Enabling better access to food
 Reducing distress migration from rural areas
 Child well being, through the reduction of hunger and improvement of health
and education

 Such a scheme should be tailored to not only provide livelihood security to the urban poor
but also create climate resilient urban infrastructure in Indian cities.
 Additional efforts are required for the vulnerable populations residing in the
ecologically fragile coastal and forest regions.
Greater emphasis on urban food
insecurity
 Improve access to healthy food,
 Effective public distribution systems need to be put in place in other states like
Tamilnadu
 To improve food absorption, living conditions in urban informal settlements need
to be upgraded.
 The Swachh Bharat Mission,which aims to construct 10.4 million individual toilets
and 0.5 million public toilets and adopt scientific solid waste management in
4,041 towns, may be regarded as a step in the right direction.
 Public investment in climate-resilient infrastructure should be enhanced.
Long-term relief measures in the event of
natural disasters
 Long-term undernutrition prevention programmes must be implemented in
disaster-affected regions.
 Additional efforts must be directed towards reducing the risk in agriculture.
 Such schemes should be specially targeted towards small farmers.

Need for more impact assessment studies

 Research efforts should be directed towards assessing and quantifying where

possible the impact of climate change on undernutrition and food absorption.
Conclusion

Understanding the cascade of risks of the most vulnerable populations is key to frame ways to
adapt.
Reducing vulnerabilities is key to net impacts on food security and nutrition and also to
reducing long-term effects.
The strategies for food security should be gender-sensitive, multi-scales, multi- sectors and
multi-stakeholders.
The National Adaptation Plan process set up under the UNFCCC provides the opportunity to
integrate food security and nutrition as a key objective