As drought conditions persist, Indian government officials recently confirmed they will increase commodity imports to help prevent a price spike on items facing shortages. The announcement comes amid criticism from experts, who are citing reckless water usage to support intensive farming as part of the problem.
”The decision is already there that whichever commodity will be in short supply, to maintain demand-supply mechanism, we will go for imports,” said Pranab Mukherjee, India’s Finance Minister. However, Mukherjee downplayed the degree to which food imports will be necessary, insisting that the country has enough buffer stocks of many essential foodstuffs to cover a shortage for 13 months.
Nevertheless, several analysts are already anticipating higher prices on commodities that are already in low supply, such as sugar and oilseed, as India turns to international markets to meet domestic demand.
The monsoon, which accounts for 75 percent of the country’s annual rainfall, is on track to be the driest in seven years, according to the weather bureau. Forty percent of India’s districts are officially facing drought-like situations - many are among the top rice-producing areas in the country. The subsequent drop in Indian exports has been a boon to countries - such as Vietnam and Thailand - that have moved in to fill the rice void.
With the drought expected to slow Indian efforts to recover from the global economic crisis, Mukherjee acknowledged the impact, saying “drought does not affect only crop production; it has a cascading effect.”
However, agriculture and food security expert, Devinder Sharma, asserts that “India’s vulnerability to drought whenever there is the slightest deviation in the monsoon pattern has grown over the years because of excessive groundwater withdrawal to support intensive farming.”
Rise of Groundwater Use
Farming in India is heavily dependent on the seasonal monsoon rains, which span from June to September. Estimates indicate that only 30 percent of India’s farmland has access to irrigation. However, several states, including Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana, have increased their agricultural production through irrigation expansion, largely fuelled by groundwater use.
During a period of massive agricultural expansion - known as the Green Revolution - the use of groundwater and expansion of irrigation canals led to changes in India’s cropping pattern, according to Anupam Mishra, head of the environment division at the Gandhi Peace Foundation. As a result, agricultural production of water-intensive crops, such as rice and sugarcane, expanded into the more arid regions of India.
During periods of drought, these areas are now extremely dependent on groundwater resources. India’s Agriculture Ministry says that farmers no longer ask for food grain as in previous droughts; instead, they demand more electricity to pump groundwater.
Groundwater is a valuable resource to people and farmers, as it stores water during wet years and makes it available during the dry years. But according to recent NASA research from the, groundwater is being withdrawn at an unsustainable rate in the states of Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana.
Experts say water reform needed
Drought is not uncommon in India - 22 major droughts have occurred in the past century. However, without groundwater reform, the impact of future droughts may include a collapse of agricultural output and severe shortages of potable water, warned Matthew Rodell, a NASA hydrologist.
Established in 1986 to respond to the problem, the Indian Central Ground Water Authority has the ability to regulate groundwater development. However, competing interests along with the reality that aquifer and political boundaries almost never match up have made efforts to implement a coordinated approach difficult.
According to Sharma, a return to traditional forms of water storage and conservation along with cropping patterns linked to water availability could alleviate the pressure on groundwater resources and increase resilience to unpredictable monsoon rains.
Economic impacts of drought come into focus
From an economic standpoint, the drought is affecting numerous agriculture sectors in India and international markets are responding to current and anticipated impacts.
The Indian government has made efforts to downplay its plans to import food in response to the drought fearing a rise in prices. However, as the world’s second largest sugarcane producer, news of the current drought has already caused sugar prices to rise in international markets. India may have to import almost a third of its demand next year, according to estimates from the country’s biggest refiner, due to the drought.
The effects are also being seen in the oil seed market. In parts of Andhra Pradesh, the world’s second largest peanut growing region, production has contracted by as much as 59 percent. Given that India is the world’s biggest user of palm oil after China, analysts are already projecting a surge in global demand.
”The situation is grim,” India’s Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar acknowledges recently. “Not just for crop sowing and crop health but also for sustaining animal health, providing drinking water, livelihood, and food, particularly for the small and marginal farmers and landless labourers.”
More than 700 million people in India depend on agriculture and allied activities for their livelihood.
Source : ictsd.net