Fagersahib, India — When unseasonable heavy rains flooded the fields and similarly unseasonable heat shrank seeds, the wheat yield of Langitosin was not only reduced by nearly half.
It placed him and almost every other household in his village in northern India far from the financial stability of the country where the majority of people make a living on their farms. Like many Indians, Mr. Singh has huge debt and the warming world makes agriculture more unstable than ever, so I wonder how he will repay it. I am.
For India and other South Asian countries, the most vulnerable countries of hundreds of millions of humankind, the region is at the forefront of climate change, where seemingly bottomless challenges such as poverty, food security, health and governance are deepening. Only when confronting the front line.
Global warming is no longer a distant outlook for short-term electoral officials to choose to look away. Increased variability in weather patterns increases the risk of disasters and serious economic damage for countries that are already tense to drive growth and development, overcome pandemic devastation and move to livelihoods and livelihoods. Means.
In Pakistan, which is tackling the economic crisis and political collapse, the outbreak of cholera in the southwest has scrambled local governments as if they were trying to put down a large wildfire.
In Bangladesh, floods before the monsoon have left millions of people stranded, complicating years of efforts to improve the country’s response to chronic floods. In Nepal, authorities are trying to drain a bursting glacial lake before flushing a Himalayan village facing the new phenomenon of too much rain and too little drinking water.
And in India, the region’s largest grain supplier and feeding hundreds of millions of citizens, reduced wheat yields have re-emerged long-standing food security concerns and brought the world to life. The government’s ambition to feed is curtailed.
South Asia is always hot and the monsoon is always pouring. And fighting new weather patterns is not alone. However, the region, which accounts for almost a quarter of the world’s population, is experiencing such extreme climates, from premature heavy rains and floods to scorching temperatures and prolonged heat waves, and is no exception. It is becoming the standard.
“We wore a jacket in March,” said Shin, a farmer in Punjab, northern India. “I’ve been using fans since March 1st this year.”
March was the hottest month in India and Pakistan in 122 years of record management, with rainfall 60-70 percent below normal. Scientists say.. This year it got hotter than usual and the temperature continued to rise. In New Delhi in May, it reached 49 degrees Celsius and about 120 degrees Fahrenheit.
Krishna Achuta Lao, a climate researcher at the Indian Institute of Technology, estimates that such heat waves could be 30 times higher than they were before the industrial era. He said that such extreme patterns would occur much more often than the current 1.2 degrees Celsius when the Earth rises 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures.
Extreme weather has reduced India’s national wheat yield by at least 3.5% this year, based on early information. In Punjab, a traditional Indian wheat basket, the decline was about 15% and in some districts it was down as much as 30%.
In the Fateh Garh Sahib region of Punjab, farmers like Mr. Singh faced double misery in the worst of the damage. Heavy rain came early, lasted longer than usual, and the fields were flooded with water. Those who managed to drain the water wanted the worst to end. However, a heat wave came in March.
When the intensity became apparent, the Indian government suddenly overturned the decision to expand wheat exports, and the war in Ukraine had already reduced world supply. Authorities cited rising international prices and domestic food security challenges.
Marancha Chakrabalti, a researcher at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, who studies climate change and development, said that India is not only declining in production, but also because many of its populations cannot afford it. He said he was “extremely vulnerable” to security threats. Food as prices rise.
“We see a huge population on the border of very poor people,” said Dr. Chakrabalti. Despite significant advances in extreme poverty reduction, many simply survive and “will not be shocked,” she said.
Damage to wheat crops has caused yet another tremor in India’s unprofitable agricultural sector. In many places, traditional crops are particularly vulnerable to groundwater depletion and unstable monsoons. Farmers and the government have not agreed on how far to go to open the agricultural market. With deep debt, farmers are committing more and more suicides.
The agricultural crisis has driven many into the city in search of other jobs. However, India’s economic growth, which focuses primarily on the top, has not expanded employment opportunities. And much of the work in the city is outdoor work, and this year’s heat wave poses a danger.
For those who are still on the farm, global warming is changing the very nature of what they put on the ground.
Agronomists once focused on developing high-yielding varieties to meet India’s food needs after a history of catastrophic famine. For the past few decades, the priority has been to increase the heat resistance of the crop. In the lab, seeds are tested at temperatures 5 degrees Celsius above the outside temperature.
“This is a dilemma,” said Rattan Tiwali, who heads the biotechnology program at the Indian Wheat Barley Institute in Carnal. “Until we are confident that the heat is there, we will not offer varieties that are clearly heat resistant, but they are not the best yields.”
Institute scientists have helped develop about 500 wheat seeds over the last few decades. What gives Tiwali and his fellow scientists hope is that, overall, the varieties are more resistant to heat.
“Slowly, the genes are accumulating in the positive direction,” he said.
Declining wheat yields have had the most direct impact on India, but the impact of climate change is not limited to borders.
Bangladesh and Nepal depend on India for wheat imports. In Bangladesh, the ebb and flow of the tide is causing as much turmoil as the neighboring Indian regions of Assam and West Bengal.When heavy rain water falls from the Himalayas, Nepalese authorities say Bring back an endangered rhino It has been swept away by India.
The flood problem in Bangladesh is not new. Hundreds of rivers flow through 170 million countries, and rising water replaces hundreds of thousands each year.
Authorities are good at saving lives through rapid evacuation. However, the unstable monsoon pattern makes it difficult to predict the timing of floods.
Reihan Udin, 35, who lives in the Zakiganji region of Sylhet, Bangladesh, has a nursery, a farm and about 6.5 acres of paddy fields. Since 2017, his home, paddy fields, and the nursery business 10 years ago have been washed away twice.
“I have to start a new nursery school,” he said. “The same thing happened five years ago.”
Nepal, where a quarter of the population lives below the poverty line, is the clearest example of how extreme weather events (floods, water scarcity, and wildfires) are disrupting our lives.
Himalayan villagers accustomed to snow are now hit by heavy rains, forcing many to relocate. Drinking water is also a big problem because the spring water dries when the snowmelt decreases.
The Ministry of Agriculture of Nepal estimated that about 30 percent of the arable land, mainly in the hills, is no longer in use. Nationally, forest fires have increased almost 10-fold over the last 20 years.
Downstream, agriculture is increasingly uncertain and risky. Last year, paddy production fell by nearly 10%, tens of thousands of acres were damaged by floods, and dozens of people died.
The constant melting of snow due to rising temperatures has increased the number of glacial lakes by hundreds, and about 20 have been identified as prone to bursting.
In 2016, the Nepali Army drained Lake Imja near Everest, reducing the risk to downstream residents. Authorities are trying to raise money to drain four more lakes soon.
In the mild Baluchistan region of Pakistan, evidence of unusual spring has been apparent for several weeks. The sky in some districts turned bright orange as a heavy sandstorm covered the area. Wildfires on the state border burned for several weeks, destroying an estimated 2 million pine and olive trees.
A plague has come over the fire. Panic grabbed the mountain town of Pilco after many people (mostly children) experienced diarrhea, vomiting, and leg cramps. By the end of April, authorities had declared an outbreak of cholera. This may be related to rising temperatures, health officials say. More than 20 people have died.
While disease outbreaks, floods and harvest disasters are a hot topic, activists and experts warn of the more constant sacrifices of everyday threats.
“This is everyday climate change in the workplace. It’s a slow change in the environmental conditions that are destroying the lives and livelihoods in front of us.” Overview report Every year, tens of thousands of Bangladeshi people lose their homes and crops due to river erosion.
Badra Sharma Contributed to the report from Kathmandu, Nepal. Saif Hasnat From Dhaka, Bangladesh Zia ur-Rehman From Suhasini Large in New Delhi, Karachi, Pakistan.