Crops not affected by temperature rise: Minister

NEW DELHI - There has been no major impact on wheat production of the rising temperature in India, Minister of State for Agriculture K.V. Thomas said Friday even as experts say global warming threat looms large over farm productivity.

There is no major impact observed on wheat production due to rising temperature in the recent past. There has been an increasing trend in wheat production since 2007-08, Thomas said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

The wheat production has increased from 78.51 million tonnes in 2007-2008 to 80.71 million tonnes in 2009-10 (as per fourth advance estimates, 2010), Thomas said.

The minister, however, said that according to the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) research project findings on wheat crop there was about three to four percent decrease in grain yield with one degree Celsius rise in temperature during the grain filling stage. He said a number of steps have been taken to mitigate the impact.

In order to increase the production and productivity of wheat, the government of India has been implementing several crop development schemes, he said.

Heat tolerance varieties have been popularised on larger scale. Besides, crop advisories are issued to wheat growing farmers for adopting latest crop production/protection technologies; timely sowing; resource conservation technology including zero seed drill; irrigation at critical stages to mitigate the sudden rise in temperature.”

Thomas said the ICAR has also initiated networking projects for developing thermal and drought tolerant genotypes that are suitable for changing climatic scenario.