प्रपत्र-5.2-जल संसाधनों पर जलवायु परिवर्तन का प्रभाव एवं खाद्य सुरक्षा - एक चुनौती

Abstract

Recently, the Government of India has resolved to double the income of farmers andhas taken several important decisions such as raising the minimum support price of crops, microloans to farmers, depositing certain amount in the accounts of farmers in form of subsidy, making agriculture related equipments available at concessional rates, timely availability of fertilizers and ensuring quality of agrochemicals etc. But in the true sense, the path of progress of farmers can be enhanced only by increasing the agricultural productivity which can be achieved by using high yielding varieties, adequately judicious use of chemical and biological nutrients and using efficient agronomic and farm management practices. However, the progress on this front can be restricted by challenges of climate change, continuously increasing population, limited land resources andincreasingly water requirement. Thus, despite of registering increase in food grains production over the past years, it is important to maintain and sustain an increase in the productivity of food grains, especially when the availability of water resources is continuously dechning.According to the data, from 1950-51 till now, a proportional correlation has been shown in food grain production and irrigated percentage area which signifies the role of water resources in the production of food grains. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 70 percent of the total water use in the world is used for agriculture, but in India this figure hovered around 87 percent in 1990 and 85 percent in 2010. Glaciers are shrinking due to climate change, hence the expansion of surface water for irrigation is almost negligible. In such a situation, the only option left before us is to exploit the ground water to irrigate our cultivable lands, which has already resulted in decline of ground water level in most parts of the country. The irregularity of rainfall is further igniting this problem with significantly higher expenditurein the energy sector, thus leaving lesser resources for irrigation/water management. Often, there is a belief in the public community that water is available in sufficient quantity, due to which this resource has been often and almost always misused and uncared. However, the day is not far when scarcity of water for crop cultivation will severely impact the production of food grains. It is thus important to manage the available water resources under challenged environments to avoid such a grave agrarian crisis. Some implementable suggestions have been made in this paper, which can help in maintaining stability in the production of food grains even under conditions of limited water availability.