Paddy farming takes a beating due to poor rainfall in northern plains

Sherpuri Goswami owns slightly more than a hectare of land and is a “small” farmer. The landholding is not enough to meet the needs of his family of 18, and the 53-year-old farmer from Nadiyali village in Haryana has taken eight hectares on lease on which he has planted paddy, the most important kharif, or monsoon, crop of India, a global leader in rice exports.

“I pay Rs 50,000 per acre per year for the land I take on lease, along with my four brothers, to grow paddy in kharif and wheat in rabi season,” Goswami tells Mongabay India.

But with each passing day, his worries multiply as half the monsoon season is over, and there is no rain. Paddy, one of the most water-intensive crops, needs timely and sufficient rainfall.

“I planted paddy in the first week of July using water from tubewell [groundwater] and was hoping for a good harvest. But there has been no rainfall,” said the farmer.

The website of the India Meteorological Department, the country’s official weather forecasting agency, shows a deficient monsoon rainfall of -18% in Haryana as of August 13. In the Ambala district, where Goswami’s village is located, the rainfall is -29%. It was 46% below normal until August 8.

“It’s been a series of losses for us. Last year in July, unprecedented floods destroyed the paddy we had planted. Our farmlands were covered in several feet of debris. And this year, drought conditions have affected our paddy crop. There has been some rainfall in the past couple of days, but a healthy paddy crop needs a lot more,” he adds.

A dry monsoon

Goswami’s concerns are shared by millions of paddy farmers in the Indo-Gangetic Plains of north India, where several states have so far received deficient rainfall in the first half (June, July and half of August) of the monsoon season.

The southwest monsoon season stretches from June 1 to September 30, when the country receives around 76% of its annual rainfall. The initial two months are crucial when the sowing of kharif crops (primarily paddy) takes place and water for irrigation is needed. In these two months, some states in the Indo-Gangetic Plains reported departures in monsoon rainfall.

Punjab, one of the top five rice-producing states in the country, reported a rainfall deficit of -34% between June 1 and August 13, as per the India Meteorological Department’s rainfall data. Bihar reported a deficit of -23%, Uttar Pradesh reported -8%, and Jharkhand -14% during the same period. West Bengal had a rainfall deficit of -21% until August 8.

Deficient rainfall in these states in the Indo-Gangetic Plains is bad news for the country because these are the key rice-producing states of India. The Indo-Gangetic Plains region is the breadbasket of the country. India is the world’s second-largest producer of rice – about 125 million tonnes per annum – and is the top exporter, with its annual rice export ranging between 18 and 22 million tonnes. But for how much longer?

“Last year, it was the floods. This year, there is no rainfall. Erratic rainfall patterns are making our life so difficult,” said Gurvinder Singh, a farmer from Jatwad village in Ambala. The 52-year-old farmer has planted paddy on 2.4 hectares of land using water from a tubewell. Like Goswami, he, too, is praying for rain.

“There are pockets of red – deficient rainfall – in the Indo-Gangetic belt. The IMD forecast shows good rainfall in these areas between August 15 and August 19, which should reduce the red dots. But a declining trend of monsoon rainfall over the Indo-Gangetic Plains is a concern and policy makers need to take it into account,” KS Hosalikar, head of Climate Research and Services, India Meteorological Department, Pune, tells Mongabay India.

Lower rice production in the past two years has already pushed the Indian government to put curbs on rice exports. In September 2022, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution placed a 20% tax on the export of non-basmati and non-parboiled rice and banned the export of broken rice.

A year later, in July 2023, the Union government placed a complete prohibition on the export of non-basmati rice. Latest news reports point out that the Indian government may lift the ban on the export of non-basmati rice depending on this year’s monsoon rainfall performance.

Declining rainfall

Deficient rainfall in the northern plains of India is a concern not limited to this year’s monsoon season alone. In the past decade or so, there has been a clear trend of declining rainfall over the Indo-Gangetic belt.

A recent study by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, an independent think tank, analysed southwest monsoon rainfall data for the past 40 years and reported that 11% of tehsils (out of the total 4,419 tehsils studied) witnessed a decrease in rainfall, particularly in the past decade of 2012-2022.

“These are in the Indo-Gangetic plains, which contribute to more than half of India’s agricultural production, northeastern India, and the Indian Himalayan region,” notes the think tank report, Decoding India’s Changing Monsoon Pattern.

Rajeevan Nair, a climate scientist and former secretary of the Ministry of Earth Sciences, says: “There could be many reasons for that. In 2021 and 2022, we had La Niña years, which caused the monsoon trough, a belt of low-pressure zone, to locate south of its position. Therefore, monsoon lows moved along a southern position. It is the monsoon lows and depressions that contribute rainfall over the IGP.”

According to him, there are two things that are happening: “Firstly, there is a delay in monsoon depression formation. There was a delay this year, too. Normally, the first depression should form around June 15. Secondly, there is a decreasing frequency of monsoon depressions.”

Several research studies have reported declining monsoon rainfall over the Indo-Gangetic Plains. Chapter 7 of the Department of Science and Technology’s publication India’s Climate Research Agenda: 2030 and Beyond notes: “Most of the declining trend in the observed summer monsoon rainfall is centered over the Indo-Gangetic Plain, the northeast region, and the Western Ghats.”

Vimal Mishra, a professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar in Gujarat, has authored that chapter in the Department of Science and Technology report. He also heads the institute’s Water and Climate Lab.

“There has been a significant decline in southwest monsoon rainfall over the Ganga river basin in north India in the past 50 years. States like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are facing frequent droughts every monsoon season. Since 2009, there have been some 13 years of rainfall deficit in these states,” Vimal Mishra tells Mongabay India.

According to him, there are three theories around the declining trend of rainfall over the Indo-Gangetic Plains. “The Indian Ocean is warming rapidly, and the thermal gradient that is required to strengthen the monsoon system is weakening,” he says.

The thermal gradient is the difference in temperature between land and ocean. “For a good monsoon, the temperature over land should be very hot, and over the ocean, it should be cool. But since the ocean is warming rapidly, the flow of the monsoon in the Indo-Gangetic Plains is weakening,” he explains.

The second theory is linked to atmospheric aerosols, which are small particles suspended in the atmosphere. Aerosols from human activity (emitted from smokestacks, car exhausts, and wildfires) affect the earth’s climate and reduce the speed of winds near the earth’s surface, leading to a reduction in rainfall.

“The Indo-Gangetic Plains are notorious for high levels of air pollution throughout the year. It is believed that high pollution in the region also weakens the monsoon,” says Vimal Mishra.

Thirdly, there is intensive irrigation practiced in the region during the peak summer months of April and May. “A large number of farmers in the Indo-Gangetic belt cultivate the cash crop of maize in summer through intensive groundwater irrigation, which cools down the temperature over the region. The thermal gradient is affected, and the monsoon is not that strong,” says Mishra, from the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar.

According to him, declining monsoon rainfall over the Indo-Gangetic Plains “is a combination of multiple factors interacting together and needs a multi-pronged approach.”

Farmers at sea

Pradeep Mishra is growing paddy on 2.5 hectares of land in Barewan village of Uttar Pradesh, another key rice-producing state of the country. The rainfall deficit in his district Mirzapur is -37% as of August 13, as per India Meteorological Department’s data.

“There has been almost no rain, and the [paddy] nursery is drying up. Reservoirs have run dry, and there is no water from the Jargo Dam either. As a result, we have not been able to transplant the paddy saplings into our fields,” the 50-year-old farmer tells Mongabay India. The Jargo Dam is built on the Jargo River, a tributary of the Ganga, about 18 km from Chunar block, where his village is located.

“Last year, there was a little rain, and the reservoirs had water in them so we could grow some grains for our own sustenance and provide our cattle with fodder. But it looks like this year we will not be able to have even that,” he says. “We have to switch to crops that do not require so much water,” he ruminates.

Tejvir Singh, the spokesperson for the Bharatiya Kisan Union (Bhagat Singh), a farmers’ association active in Punjab and Haryana, blames the government for not protecting farmers’ interests in the face of climate change. “So far, there’s been a drought this year for the farmers. They are struggling with tubewell water to irrigate their paddy fields,” says Singh.

He pointed out how nearly 50 villages were reduced to rubble in the floods of last year and alleged that the people were yet to receive any compensation from the government. “Only 10% of the farmers have received any compensation. And, there has been nothing forthcoming for the damage caused to homes and cattle-deaths,” he complains.

Rajeevan says that he is worried about the changing weather pattern that is impacting farmers and the country’s food security. “During the last few years, we see monsoon variability which is not a typical textbook pattern. Global warming could be one of the reasons. We need to understand this micro-scale monsoon variability – both spatially and temporally – and its possible impacts on agriculture.”

“The onset of monsoon is late, and withdrawal is also delayed. Therefore, sowing time has changed. We now have longer dry spells (very few rainy days), and when it rains, it rains heavily. Therefore, agricultural practices should change. But who is going to bell the cat?” he asks.

Decentralised forecasting, groundwater management

According to Vimal Mishra, as the world moves towards a warmer climate, rainfall is likely to become more erratic, and it will accelerate the depletion of groundwater.

“The Indo-Gangetic Plains are important for food production, and farmers there practice intensive irrigation using groundwater. Imagine if, in the future, the monsoon fails for two consecutive years; this region may not have enough groundwater reserves to facilitate farming activities. It is a huge threat to the income of farmers and also the country’s food security,” he says.

Eklavya Prasad, founder of Megh Pyne Abhiyaan, has been working on water management issues in Bihar and Jharkhand for the past several years. He agrees with Vimal Mishra regarding the future challenges changing rainfall patterns in the Indo-Gangetic Plains are likely to throw.

“In Bihar, there is a trend of deficient rainfall during the monsoon season, and just before the end of the season, there is extremely heavy rainfall, often leading to floods. This way, drought-hit farmers cannot even avail compensation, and whatever they have planted, is washed away,” says Prasad.

“In Jharkhand, where a large number of tribal farmers do rainfed subsistence farming, sowing has to be completed by July. But June and July are increasingly dry,” he says. “What farmers need is a more decentralised forecast of rainfall and local weather conditions so that they can take a timely decision on which crops to grow,” he adds.

Prasad recommends panchayat level monitoring of rainfall and collection of more decentralised data, which can help in village-level crop planning and water budgeting. According to him, the Ministry of Jal Shakti’s Jal Shakti Abhiyan has a provision to take up such activities.

“Under Jal Shakti Abhiyan, the government has asked for Jal Shakti Kendra’s to be set up at district level. These centres can be developed based on a hub-and-spoke model to collect and disseminate panchayat level information on rainfall and other water related issues,” he says.

Rajeevan points out that the India Meteorological Department’s seasonal forecasts are good for the country as a whole and, to some extent, for homogenous regions of India. Seasonal forecasts are not meant for state or subdivision. “IMD and the Ministry of Earth Sciences should improve weather and agromet services appreciably. The model forecasts should improve further. There should be a good relationship between IMD and farmers. Now that is not happening as desired,” he says.

Vimal Mishra stresses the need for detailed and decentralised aquifer mapping, recharge zones, and recharge potential of each zone. “During flood years, we need to find mechanisms to enhance the recharge of groundwater rather than it all getting washed away. Unregulated withdrawal of groundwater has to be stopped,” he says.

“Farmers need to be supported and convinced to move away from highly water-intensive crops. Government should think of increasing the MSP [minimum support price] for less water-intensive crops and provide financial incentives to farmers,” he adds.

Additional inputs from Brijendra Dubey.

This article was first published on Mongabay.