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Introduction
Climate change refers to the variation in the Earth’s global climate or in regional climate over time. It describes changes in the state of the atmosphere over time scales ranging from decades to millions of years.
In another way climate change is defined as “a change which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods”. The most imminent climatic changes in recent times is the increase in the atmospheric temperatures due to increased levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), ozone (O3), nitrous oxide (N2O) and chlorofluoro carbons (CFCs). Because of the increasing concentrations of those radioactive or greenhouse gases, there is much concern about future changes in our climate and direct or indirect effect on agriculture (Garg et al., 2001; IPCC, 2001; Krupa; 2003; Aggarwal, 2003; Bhatia et al., 2004).
Agriculture plays a key role in overall economic and social well being of India. Indian is an agricultural country, where 70 per cent population is dependent on agriculture. This forms the main source of income. The contribution of agriculture in the national income in India is more, hence, it is said that agriculture in India is a backbone of Indian Economy. The contribution from agriculture has been continuously falling from 55.1% in 1950-51 to 37.6% in 1981-82 & further to 18.5% in 2006-07. Agriculture constitutes about 75% of the total exports of the country. Such is the importance of agriculture as far as earnings of foreign exchange are concerned. Because of the heavy pressure of population in labor-surplus economies like India & its rapid increase the demand for food increases at a fast rate. Therefore, unless agriculture is able to continuously increase its surplus of food-grains, a crisis is likely to emerge. Agriculture provides raw materials to various industries of national importance. Sugar industry, Jute industry, Cotton textile industry, Vanaspati industry are examples of some such industries which depend on agriculture for their development. Since more than two-thirds of the population of India lives in rural areas, increased rural purchasing power is a valuable stimulus to industrial development. Climate change and agriculture are interrelated processes, both of which take place on a global scale. Thus seeing the importance of agriculture in Indian economy and livelihood, it is important to discuss the impact of climate change on agriculture for better understanding of the impact and to take preventive measures.
Effect of elevated CO2 on agriculture
In recent times, the crop simulation models have been used extensively to study the impact of climate change on agricultural production and food security. The output provided by the simulation models can be used to make appropriate crop management decisions and to provide farmers and others with alternative options for their farming system(Mall et al., 2006) Assist farmers in coping with current climatic risks(weather services, agro-advisories, insurance, community banks for seed and fodder). Intensify food production systems (technology and input delivery systems, market links) Improve land and water management(technologies for resource conservation and use efficiency) Enable policies and regional cooperation (incentives to farmers for resource conservation and use efficiency, pricing of resources, credit for transition to adaptation technologies) Strengthen research for enhancing adaptive capacity varieties, resource conservation technologies, pest surveillance -for improved assessments: mechanism for collection and dissemination of weather, soil, water and agricultural data. We have to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and shift towards becoming a low carbon economy – one that relies on low emissions forms of energy and that is much more efficient in using energy resources.
Conclusion
References
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