This year has seen India record its warmest ever February and the driest August since time-series temperature and rainfall data became available from 1901. On top of these, rains were well above normal in March, April and May, while the southwest monsoon arrived a week late on June 8, but covered the entire country six days ahead by July 2.
With three months still to go, the current year seems on course to set new benchmarks in the annals of climate change. Its effects are no longer confined to just damaging the wheat crop weeks away from harvesting or delaying the pace of kharif sowings.
Climate change, according to a report in this newspaper, is now being flagged as the “single biggest business risk” by even consumer good firms. Unseasonal showers during the last summer season crimped demand for ice-cream and cold beverages as well as sales of air-conditioners and refrigerators.
For farmers, coping with the vagaries of the monsoon is a challenge probably as old as agriculture itself. But climate change isn’t simply about monsoon failures. Instead, it has to do with fewer rainy days and extended dry spells, interspersed with intense precipitation and also extreme temperature deviations.
While these have already become the new normal in agriculture, non-farm businesses are also beginning to feel the pinch. In the past, bad monsoons basically impacted rural incomes and, in turn, sales of tractors, two-wheelers and fast-moving consumer goods.
But milder summers, shorter winters and unseasonal rains do much more, by creating less-manageable uncertainties for companies used to planning production and building stocks based on established demand patterns. They may need to rethink that framework a tad: Don’t pin hopes on cola sales during the summer that may not be as hot as one would have thought. Likewise, diversify product portfolios to ensure there’s always enough of something to sell through the year. If a “season” turns out good, treat it as a bonus.
It’s not farmers and businesses alone. Even economic policymakers need to incorporate climate change into their growth and plan models. There has to be more investment in knowledge about all potential outcomes and probabilities of occurrences with regard to extreme weather events across sectors. Such knowledge generation, extending to breeding of temperature stress-tolerant or drought-resistant crops and timely forecasting of large storms and heat waves, is essential in a world of both adaptation to and mitigation of climate change.
And since climate change isn’t sparing anyone, including the big FMCG players, and adaptation is something that’s of more immediate interest, it makes sense to get everyone on board. Let government, industry, meteorologists, agricultural scientists and disaster management specialists together draw up a national climate adaptation strategy for India.
