When it comes to agriculture, 2021 will be mostly remembered for the unflinching protests by the farmers of mostly Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh which led to the scrapping of the three farm laws. The scrapping of the laws was celebrated and hailed as the biggest win for the farmers. If this is good news, then this is the only good news for the farm sector this year. Like much of the previous years, the farm sector continued to suffer because of extreme weather events because of climate change.

The year began with two major cyclones battering both the east as well as west coast of India. First, it was cyclone Tauktae that made landfall in Gujarat after bringing very heavy rainfall to the three states of Karnataka, Goa, and Maharashtra. Tauktae was ferocious. In Gujarat, it damaged 80% of the Kesar mango crop which was ready for harvest. This apart from destroying large swaths of farmland with standing moong and bajra. The state government’s initial estimate puts crop damage at Rs 1,200 crore.

A few days after Cyclone Tauktae, Cyclone Yaas hit the east coast. Agriculture in Odisha and West Bengal was badly affected. Over 150 villages in Odisha were flooded mostly destroying vegetable farms. Here too the state government estimated the losses to be over Rs 600 crore.

Yaas and Tauktae were headline events just like the locust attacks of 2020. But the trend of crop loss because of extreme climatic conditions seems to be increasing every passing year. Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) assessment shows that 2010 to 2019 was the most turbulent decade for disasters, and globally there were relatively fewer disaster peak years in the 2010s. This is also true for India.

In July, floods in Maharashtra damaged standing crops. This was followed by a 24 per cent rain deficit in August and 35 per cent excess rain in September. In October, heavy rains destroyed harvest-ready crops in many districts of Kerala.

The devastation continued even towards the end of the year. In November, unprecedented rainfall caused huge loss of life and property in the south Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Karnataka.

Data from the last five years show that an area close to 36 million hectares of farmlands was affected by hydro-meteorological calamities. This affected area is bigger than India’s largest state… the state of Rajasthan.

There is no cumulative assessment of monetary damage from crop loss for the last five years. But an indication of the scale of damage can be gauged by extrapolating the crop damage figures of 2016. In 2016, damage to crops on 6.65 million hectares area was estimated to value Rs 4052.72 crore, according to the government’s submission in the Lok Sabha in 2020. If this is applied to 36 million hectares of crop area India has lost since 2016, the figure translates to a whopping Rs 29,939 crore. Meaning a Rs 29,939 crore loss to farmers. This would only be an indicative figure as the 2017 evaluation of the crop damage suggests. . In 2017, while the crop damage was on less area, compared to 2016 – 5.08 million hectares area, the value of such damage was more than double – Rs 8761.39 crore. So, a lot also depends on the type of crops and the sowing season. For example, farmers suffer more losses if the crop loss happens during the Kharif season as most earn during that time.

But the signs are written on the wall, it is climate change and the freak and extreme weather events that have become the biggest bane for the Indian farmers. This is particularly distressing because almost 85% of farmers in India are small or marginal which means they possess less than 2 hectares of land. These farmers do not have the wherewithal to stand up or fight these extreme weather events. And on top of that, they are let down by a poor insurance and compensatory mechanism. Like other years this was also evident in 2021. While XXX number of insurance claims were filed…. Only XXX number of farmers managed to get the money.

Globally it has been acknowledged that extreme weather is the reason for the majority of crop losses that farmers face. Even the FAO acknowledges this in their report called State of Food and Agriculture, 2021. And just to remind everyone that all this we are seeing when the average global temperatures have risen by just 1 degree Celsius. What will happen if the temperatures rise by 1.5 degrees Celsius or 2 degrees Celsius or more? What will be India’s plan? Next year which 2022 may be a lot worse than the one we are ending on December 31.

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