Impact of Climate Change on Sustainability of Rice Export from India

India is the largest producer and leading exporter of rice all over the world. Rice contributes significantly to its GDP in terms of export revenue, and largest consumer of fresh water in water stressed country like India. It has been observed that climate change has direct, indirect and differential impact on agriculture and food security, water resource and agricultural trade. Therefore, this is an emerging concern to understand and conduct in-depth analysis about the sustainability of rice production and export from India within the constraints of climate change and acute water crisis. This study analyses the trend of climate factors namely, annual rainfall, mean temperature, no of extreme events and export of rice over past thirty years and examines the causal relationship between export of water intensive rice and climate factors within constraint of water crisis. Our analytical findings indicate that average temperature has negative impact and annual rainfall and has positive impact on mean export of rice. High association between temperature (.60) and rainfall (.45) with extreme events gives a deeper understanding on dynamics of climate parameters and supports their insignificant joint impact on export quantity of rice. However, a further research integrating climate –water agriculture and trade is an agenda for future analysis. While an expected revenue loss may occur as a result of decision to reduce trade in water intensive revenue earning crops, an integrated climatetrade policy is the need of the hour to secure sustainable production and export of rice without putting much pressure on water resource in India.

Author(s): Ms. Swati Pathak1 , Dr. Shefali Dani2 Dr. Hitesh Solanki3

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