In an effort to combat the adverse affects of climate change on agriculture, a joint panel of experts from North East states is to be constituted.

Climate change is one of the biggest environmental threats facing the world, potentially impacting food production and security, sustained water supply, biodiversity of forests and other natural ecosystems.

One the worst affected parts of this climate change in India are the Northeast states. The climate of seven sisters and one brother is almost same. The economy of all the 8 Northeast states is agrarian in nature.

Assam Agriculture University has floated the idea of setting up such panel. The vice-chancellor of the university, K.M. Bujarbaruah, said as global warming and its subsequent effect on the climate is definitely having an impact on the agricultural sector of the region, it was necessary that the states get together and have a proper scientific study in this regard.

In this regard the officials from the University are in constant touch with neighboring states. Name of the experts who could be part of such panel were invited and process is gearing up slowly.

As per the data released by the National Action Plan on Climate Change, a trend of decreasing rainfall in the Northeast has been noticed. The region lost more than 200mm of annual average rainfall in the last 100 years. The minimum temperature on an average has risen at many places from 1 degree Celsius to 1.5 degrees Celsius during the same period.

It is a high time to look upon the necessary strategies to sustain agriculture productivity in the light of harsh climate changes. “Although such studies are being carried out at the national level, we need a special panel to study the impact of the climate change on the region’s agriculture. It is time that all the states got together now since no systematic study has been done in this regard using long-term weather data,” the AAU vice-chancellor said.

 

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