Experts in India urge change in farming practices to avoid droughts

By Shuriah Niazi

NEW DELHI, India (AA) – Although India had succeeded in avoiding droughts, which used to be a regular occurrence in the past century, experts in India have warned that they could return unless the country switches from chemical to ecological farming.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, on the occasion of World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought, which is being observed on Friday, Devinder Sharma, an agriculture economist said the transformation was necessary to ensure food security.

Sharma said the future lies in ecological farming and new agriculture practices to avoid droughts.

A report released recently has revealed that over the years many areas in India have become vulnerable to droughts. There has been a 57% increase in the country’s drought-prone areas since 1997.

“The bigger challenge is how to develop a kind of agriculture or how to ensure that not much damage is done to the farming sector in years to come,” he said.

“So, UN is right when they say that desertification is increasing. Drought will result in desertification. It also means that food insecurity of the vulnerable population will mount or increase in India,” Sharma added.

Stalin Dayanand, a conservationist working with a non-profit environmental organization Vanashakti called for evolving region-specific policies.

“We have seen that our policies are such that is replicated all over the same without understanding the ecology of the place and that is why we are facing this situation,” he told Anadolu Agency.

Dayanand said that it is important that the government should involve experts from the field when formulating a policy.

“We have seen that politicians take decisions on those issues in which they do not have any expertise and that is why we are suffering from such a situation,” added Dayanand.

According to experts, the situation is likely to worsen keeping in view the climate change and weather patterns.

The unseasonal heat wave across north and central India made March 2022 the hottest month since record-keeping began in 1901.

A study by the Indian Institute of Tropical Metrology (IITM) has revealed that rising marine heat waves in the Indian ocean have impacted rainfall in the Indian monsoon.

The study led by senior scientist Roxy Mathew Koll found that the rainfall is decreasing over central South Asia – from south of Pakistan through central India to Bangladesh. The decrease is highly significant in central India where agriculture is still mostly rain-fed, with a reduction of up to 10-20% in the mean rainfall.

Experts say the government of India is taking several short-term and long-term measures to combat the threat of drought but the rapid rate of deforestation due to increasing urbanization and industrialization neutralizes the effect of these measures.