A recent report by agricultural economists and scientists at Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) has revealed that climate change will decrease maize and cotton yield in Punjab by 13 per cent and 11 per cent, respectively, by 2050.
The study made use of temperature and rainfall data gathered between 1986 and 2020 to forecast the consequences of climate change on five significant crops (rice, maize, cotton, wheat, and potato) in the agrarian state. It was published earlier this month in the India Meteorological Department’s Mausam publication.
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The researchers employed the five weather observatories established by Punjab Agricultural University: Ludhiana, Patiala, Faridkot, Bathinda, and SBS Nagar to collect climate information.
According to the researchers, agricultural economist Sunny Kumar, scientist Baljinder Kaur Sidana, and PhD student Smily Thakur, long-term changes in climatic elements point to the temperature increase as the primary cause of the changes rather than the shift in rainfall pattern.
Story was adapted from Business World.
