Express View: Lesson from wheat fields
With wheat stocks in government godowns, at 9.7 million tonnes on March 1, the lowest in seven years for this date, all eyes are on the crop about to be marketed . For now, a bumper harvest seems to be in the offing , at least in Punjab, Haryana, UP and Bihar. Unlike in 2022 and 2023, when the crop suffered yield losses due to temperature spikes and unseasonal heavy rains respectively during the final grain formation and filling stage, no such “ Ides of March ” weather events have been reported from this major wheat belt . March temperatures ruling near normal this time and three-fourths of the grain-filling completed augurs well for the crop across the Indo-Gangetic plains. The problem, if any, is with the wheat in central India — MP, Gujarat and Maharashtra — that has already been, or is close to being, harvested. And even there, it’s not March but November-December temperatures that may have played spoiler.
It only highlights how susceptible wheat — and agriculture itself — has become to climate change. In this case, it isn’t just terminal heat stress , leading to Premature ripening and drying of the crop in its final growth phase. It is also about relatively warm temperatures at the time of sowing and initial vegetative growth period, resulting in fewer tillers being formed and premature flowering. Climate change, thus, manifests itself both in the early onset of summer and the delayed setting in of winter. If the 2021-22 wheat in northwest and north India was affected by the former , the crop this time in central India has apparently taken a hit from the latter . To the extent the lower yields from central India are offset by better-than-average production in the Indo-Gangetic plains, the country can still end up harvesting more wheat than in 2021-22 and 2022-23. Whether that is so will be known in a month’s time. Thankfully, global wheat prices are currently at their lowest in four years, making imports feasible . The government should enable it by doing away with the 40 per cent customs duty .
From a medium- to long-term perspective , India has to invest more in breeding for climate change. The Green Revolution strategy essentially relied on expansion of irrigation and developing crop varieties responsive to high fertiliser application. Green Revolution 2.0’s focus must be on input use efficiency — producing more from the same or even less quantity of water, nutrients and energy — and building climate resilience through breeding of drought-resistant and heat-tolerant varieties. This would entail screening germplasm and identifying genes in plants responsible for the desirable traits .