NEW DELHI (AP) – An unusually early, record-breaking heat wave in India has cut wheat yields, raising questions about how the country will balance its domestic needs with ambitions to boost exports and make up for shortages caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Giant dumps in the Indian capital, New Delhi, have caught fire in recent weeks. Schools in the eastern Indian state of Odisha are closed for a week, and in neighboring West Bengal, schools are stockpiling oral rehydration salts for children. On Tuesday, Rajgarh, a city of more than 1.5 million people in central India, was the hottest in the country, with daily temperatures reaching 46.5 degrees Celsius (114.08 Fahrenheit). Temperatures exceeded the 45 C (113 F) limit in nine other cities.
But the heat of March – the hottest in India since records first began in 1901 – delayed the harvest. Wheat is very sensitive to heat, especially in the last stage, when its grains ripen and ripen. Indian farmers allocate planting time so that this stage coincides with the usually cooler spring in India.
Climate change has made the heat wave in India hotter, said Frederick Otto, a climatologist at Imperial College London. She said that before human activity raises global temperatures, heat waves like this year would hit India once every half century.
“But now it’s a much more common event – we can expect such high temperatures once every four years,” she said.
India’s vulnerability to extreme heat has increased by 15% from 1990 to 2019, according to a 2021 report by The Lancet. It is among the top five countries where vulnerable people, such as the elderly and the poor, are most exposed to heat. It and Brazil have the highest heat-related mortality rates in the world, the report said.
Agricultural workers like Baldev Singh are among the most vulnerable. Singh, a farmer from Sangrur in the northern Indian state of Punjab, watched his harvest thicken before his eyes as the usually cool spring quickly turned to relentless heat. He lost about a fifth of his profitability. Others lost more.
“I’m afraid the worst is yet to come,” Singh said.
Punjab is India’s “grain bowl” and the government has been promoting wheat and rice farming here since the 1960s. This is usually the largest contribution to India’s national reserves, and the government hoped to buy about a third of this year’s shares in the region. But government estimates predict lower yields this year and Devinder Sharma, an agricultural policy expert in the northern city of Chandigarh. said he expects to receive 25% less.
The story is the same in other large wheat-producing states, such as Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.
In total, India bought more than 43 million metric tons (47.3 million tons in the United States) of wheat in 2021. Sharma estimates that it will receive 20% to almost 50% less instead.
Although the world’s second-largest wheat producer, India exports only a small portion of its harvest. It was trying to take advantage of the global disruption of wheat supplies from Russia’s war in Ukraine and find new markets for its wheat in Europe, Africa and Asia.
This seems uncertain given the complex balance that the government has to maintain between supply and demand. It needs about 25 million tons (27.5 million tons in the United States) of wheat for the extensive food welfare program, which typically feeds more than 80 million people.
Before the pandemic, India had vast reserves that far exceeded its domestic needs – a buffer against the risk of famine.
These reserves are strained, Sharma said, by the distribution of free grain during the pandemic to about 800 million people – vulnerable groups such as migrant workers. The program was extended until September, but it is unclear whether it will continue after that.
“We are no longer in such a surplus. . . “As exports increase, there will be a lot of pressure on local wheat stocks,” Sharma said.
The Federal Ministries of Agriculture and Trade of India did not respond to questions sent to them by email.
Beyond India, other countries are also struggling with poor harvests, hampering their ability to help offset potential supply shortages from Russia and Ukraine, usually the world’s largest and fifth-largest wheat exporters.
Chinese Agriculture Minister Tang Renjiang said last month that the winter wheat harvest is likely to be poor, hampered by floods and delays in planting.
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The Associated Press’s Department of Health and Science receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Scientific Education. AP is solely responsible for all content.
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