From growing two or more crops together to switching to organic farming, a couple in Karnataka have found ways to cope with climate change and maintain profit
Kalaburagi district (Karnataka): “Year by year, the quantity of rainfall is decreasing,” said Shyamrao Patil, 55, a lungi-clad, generously mustachioed wiry farmer who has learned to read the changing seasons and–most importantly–adapt to them in a country where climate change has started affecting the livelihoods of a fifth of the population, or 263 million people, that depends on farming.
Here in the pigeon-pea (tur dal) bowl of Karnataka, Patil and his wife Laxmibai, 50, grow a variety of crops as one bet against climate change in an area where farming risks include water scarcity, increasingly erratic rain, rising temperatures and decreasing soil quality, we found in a 2018 study of 419 farm households. Further, 91% of farmers surveyed in Kalaburagi reported a decrease in rainfall over a decade to 2016, and 61% reported regular scarcities of water for farming, we found across four blocks in this arid, poor northern Karnataka district where several human-development indicators match those in India’s poorest state, Bihar.
Patil and his wife–both have studied till class three, in a district with a literacy rate of 65%, lower than many Bihar districts–represent communities in India’s drylands who have a history of coping with and planning for climatic risks. Some examples: Water harvesting in Rajasthan and tank irrigation across South India.
Diversifying risk, investing in machines to process some of their crops, utilising government subsidies and participating in collective efforts to market crops and store water–these are some of the techniques the Patils have learned and now teach others. They offer a template that could be used in many parts of India in an age of shrinking landholdings, growing water scarcity, climate change and agrarian distress.
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