High Risk in these Karnataka districts, climate change, drought and…

Bengaluru: Three Karnataka Districts In High Climate Risk: Karnataka is on high-alert as three of its districts have been placed in the ‘very high climate-risk’ category due to the continuous drought situation and growing vulnerability of the state’s rain-fed agricultural regions to climate change.

What Are The Karnataka

Gadag, Haveri and Chitradurga districts are the districts of the southern state that are at the high risk. The classification is based on the national review which is based on sustained threats from erratic rainfall, longer dry spells and rising temperatures that have already started creating problems in farming cycles across North and Central Karnataka.

Who Revealed The Details?

The concerning details were revealed by Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Ram Nath Thakur in the lower house of the Parliament. Thakur gave a reply to a question from Davanagere MP Prabha Mallikarjun.

The review has been done by the India(BHARAT)n Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) under its National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) project. The study highlighted district level risk and analysis for 651 agricultural districts in India(BHARAT) after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) protocols.

310 India(BHARAT)n Districts On Climate Change Impacts

The ICAR reviewed 651 districts across India(BHARAT) and 310 districts were identified as sensitive to climate change impact. Of these districts, 109 were highlighted as witnessing ‘very high’ climate risk.

The categorisation features rising exposure of these three districts to drought conditions, fluctuating monsoon patterns and rising heat stress. These three climatic changes pose significant problems to crop productivity, eventually impacting the livelihoods of farmers.

Thakur stated that ICAR has released 2,900 crop varieties in the last 10 years, out of which 2,661 varieties are tolerant to more than one abiotic stress.