India’s farmers are already feeling the effects of climate change, and agricultural output will suffer further as rainfall becomes more and more erratic, a government report has predicted.
The annual economic survey, published by India’s finance ministry on Monday, said changes in climate could shrink agricultural income by as much as 25 per cent in unirrigated farmland and 18 per cent in irrigated areas within the next 82 years.
But even these figures might underestimate the true impact of climate change, said the survey, which was overseen by prime minister Narendra Modi’s chief economic adviser, Arvind Subramanian.
"These are stark findings, given the already low levels of incomes in agriculture in India," it added.
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Read more:
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Farming was once the backbone of the Indian economy, contributing 52 per cent of India’s GDP in 1950.
Although that share has dropped steadily over the years, down to around 14 per cent today, a huge proportion of the population still depends on agriculture for its livelihood.
According to data from India's 2011 census, roughly 263 million Indians — around 22 per cent of the population — work in the sector, either as farmers or as agricultural labourers.
Among them is Aruna Urs, whose family has been farming land near the city of Mysore, in the state of Karnataka, for at least eight generations. In the summer, Mr Urs grows vegetables; after the monsoon has passed, in the final third of the year, he grows quinoa and chia.
Over the past decade, Mr Urs has been noticing spiking temperatures every April — the time when he would usually be starting to plant his tomatoes. "The peak temperature seems to have gone up by at least 2°C," he said. "Now 40°C has now become the norm."
As a consequence, the tomatoes suffer. Mr Urs now transplants his plants from the nursery to the field at night, when it’s cooler. Even so, half the plants die within a day. "The mortality rate [even five years ago] was just 10 or maybe 20 per cent."
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Read more:
[ Autumn still brings the choking smoke of burning crops to Delhi ]
[ Modi to survey flood devastation in Assam amid controversy ]
__________India
Summer temperatures are expected to rise further across the Indian subcontinent. If worldwide emissions do not decline, several parts of northern India will reach a fatal "wet-bulb" temperature of 35°C by the end of this century, according to research published by Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists in August last year.
A so-called "wet-bulb" temperature factors humidity as well as heat into its calculations. At a wet-bulb temperature of 35°C, humans are unable to cool themselves through perspiration.
The shifting climate has also made rainfall over India more irregular. And in a country where roughly 52 per cent of the farmland is unirrigated — in other words, dependent on seasonal rain to water its crops — this is a big problem.
In times of heavy rain, crops are inundated or washed away; when rain is scarce, farmers resort to pumping more water out of the earth to water their crops, depleting groundwater resources as a result.
With this in mind, the economic survey said that India must irrigate more of its farmland.
"The challenge is that the spread of irrigation will have to occur against a backdrop of extreme groundwater depletion, especially in North India," the survey said. Irrigation relies, in part, on conserving and carefully distributing groundwater.
"India pumps more than twice as much groundwater as China or the United States," it added.
But many of India’s farmers are among the country's poorest people, unable to afford the installation of irrigation systems. The average farm household earns 6,426 rupees (Dh371) a month, according to government data.
"Labour is expensive. Machinery is expensive," said Jasjit Kang, an agronomist at Punjab Agricultural University. "Farmers just can’t afford these kinds of costly additions to their farms."
The unpredictable rainfall also brings another challenge: disease, wrought by bacteria, viruses and insects. Last year, for instance, unusually heavy spells of rain in Karnataka triggered an outbreak of armyworm, an insect that feeds on paddy, maize and millets. Nearly half a million acres of crops were destroyed, the state’s agriculture minister said in December last year.
"People near me grow millet, and I saw them spraying insecticide on their crops, because the infestation was so massive," Mr Urs said. "I’ve never seen people do that before. This was the first time they needed to do it."
As climate change further disturbs agricultural patterns, farmers will go into deeper distress. Since 1995, when the government started to keep relevant records, roughly 300,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide, unable to pay off their debts or improve their harvests.
A study published last year by a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, found a correlation between farmer suicides and spikes in temperature in India.
"For temperatures above 20°C, a 1°C increase in a single day’s temperature causes [roughly] 70 suicides, on average," the researcher, Tamma Carleton, said, estimating that at least 59,000 suicides since 1980 can be attributed to a warming climate.
If agricultural families aren’t able to adapt to building temperatures, she added, “it’s likely we will see a rising number of lives lost to suicide as climate change worsens in India”.
But it won’t just be farmers who suffer, said Mr Urs.
“When plants suffer heat stress, they don’t yield. So the produce coming to the markets is much less, and the prices are much higher,” he said. “This is a bad thing for every single person who eats any food at all in India.”
THE SPECS
2020 Toyota Corolla Hybrid LE
Engine: 1.8 litre combined with 16-volt electric motors
Transmission: Automatic with manual shifting mode
Power: 121hp
Torque: 142Nm
Price: Dh95,900
CRICKET WORLD CUP QUALIFIER, ZIMBABWE
UAE fixtures
Monday, June 19
Sri Lanka v UAE, Queen’s Sports Club
Wednesday, June 21
Oman v UAE, Bulawayo Athletic Club
Friday, June 23
Scotland v UAE, Bulawayo Athletic Club
Tuesday, June 27
Ireland v UAE, Bulawayo Athletic Club
Other ways to buy used products in the UAE
UAE insurance firm Al Wathba National Insurance Company (AWNIC) last year launched an e-commerce website with a facility enabling users to buy car wrecks.
Bidders and potential buyers register on the online salvage car auction portal to view vehicles, review condition reports, or arrange physical surveys, and then start bidding for motors they plan to restore or harvest for parts.
Physical salvage car auctions are a common method for insurers around the world to move on heavily damaged vehicles, but AWNIC is one of the few UAE insurers to offer such services online.
For cars and less sizeable items such as bicycles and furniture, Dubizzle is arguably the best-known marketplace for pre-loved.
Founded in 2005, in recent years it has been joined by a plethora of Facebook community pages for shifting used goods, including Abu Dhabi Marketplace, Flea Market UAE and Arabian Ranches Souq Market while sites such as The Luxury Closet and Riot deal largely in second-hand fashion.
At the high-end of the pre-used spectrum, resellers such as Timepiece360.ae, WatchBox Middle East and Watches Market Dubai deal in authenticated second-hand luxury timepieces from brands such as Rolex, Hublot and Tag Heuer, with a warranty.
COMPANY PROFILE
Company name: Clinicy
Started: 2017
Founders: Prince Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman, Abdullah bin Sulaiman Alobaid and Saud bin Sulaiman Alobaid
Based: Riyadh
Number of staff: 25
Sector: HealthTech
Total funding raised: More than $10 million
Investors: Middle East Venture Partners, Gate Capital, Kafou Group and Fadeed Investment
The specs
Engine: 3.8-litre twin-turbo flat-six
Power: 650hp at 6,750rpm
Torque: 800Nm from 2,500-4,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed dual-clutch auto
Fuel consumption: 11.12L/100km
Price: From Dh796,600
On sale: now
UAE SQUAD
Khalid Essa, Ali Khaseif, Fahad Al Dhanhani, Adel Al Hosani, Bandar Al Ahbabi, Mohammad Barghash, Salem Rashid, Khalifa Al Hammadi, Shaheen Abdulrahman, Hassan Al Mahrami, Walid Abbas, Mahmoud Khamis, Yousef Jaber, Majed Sorour, Majed Hassan, Ali Salmeen, Abdullah Ramadan, Abdullah Al Naqbi, Khalil Al Hammadi, Fabio De Lima, Khalfan Mubarak, Tahnoon Al Zaabi, Ali Saleh, Caio Canedo, Ali Mabkhout, Sebastian Tagliabue, Zayed Al Ameri
Electric scooters: some rules to remember
- Riders must be 14-years-old or over
- Wear a protective helmet
- Park the electric scooter in designated parking lots (if any)
- Do not leave electric scooter in locations that obstruct traffic or pedestrians
- Solo riders only, no passengers allowed
- Do not drive outside designated lanes
What is the definition of an SME?
SMEs in the UAE are defined by the number of employees, annual turnover and sector. For example, a “small company” in the services industry has six to 50 employees with a turnover of more than Dh2 million up to Dh20m, while in the manufacturing industry the requirements are 10 to 100 employees with a turnover of more than Dh3m up to Dh50m, according to Dubai SME, an agency of the Department of Economic Development.
A “medium-sized company” can either have staff of 51 to 200 employees or 101 to 250 employees, and a turnover less than or equal to Dh200m or Dh250m, again depending on whether the business is in the trading, manufacturing or services sectors.
Results
2pm: Maiden (PA) Dh 40,000 (Dirt) 1,200m, Winner: AF Thayer, Tadhg O’Shea (jockey), Ernst Oertel (trainer).
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4.30pm: Handicap (PA) Dh 40,000 (D) 1,700m, Winner: Ajaj, Bernardo Pinheiro, Mohamed Daggash.
KEY DATES IN AMAZON'S HISTORY
July 5, 1994: Jeff Bezos founds Cadabra Inc, which would later be renamed to Amazon.com, because his lawyer misheard the name as 'cadaver'. In its earliest days, the bookstore operated out of a rented garage in Bellevue, Washington
July 16, 1995: Amazon formally opens as an online bookseller. Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought becomes the first item sold on Amazon
1997: Amazon goes public at $18 a share, which has grown about 1,000 per cent at present. Its highest closing price was $197.85 on June 27, 2024
1998: Amazon acquires IMDb, its first major acquisition. It also starts selling CDs and DVDs
2000: Amazon Marketplace opens, allowing people to sell items on the website
2002: Amazon forms what would become Amazon Web Services, opening the Amazon.com platform to all developers. The cloud unit would follow in 2006
2003: Amazon turns in an annual profit of $75 million, the first time it ended a year in the black
2005: Amazon Prime is introduced, its first-ever subscription service that offered US customers free two-day shipping for $79 a year
2006: Amazon Unbox is unveiled, the company's video service that would later morph into Amazon Instant Video and, ultimately, Amazon Video
2007: Amazon's first hardware product, the Kindle e-reader, is introduced; the Fire TV and Fire Phone would come in 2014. Grocery service Amazon Fresh is also started
2009: Amazon introduces Amazon Basics, its in-house label for a variety of products
2010: The foundations for Amazon Studios were laid. Its first original streaming content debuted in 2013
2011: The Amazon Appstore for Google's Android is launched. It is still unavailable on Apple's iOS
2014: The Amazon Echo is launched, a speaker that acts as a personal digital assistant powered by Alexa
2017: Amazon acquires Whole Foods for $13.7 billion, its biggest acquisition
2018: Amazon's market cap briefly crosses the $1 trillion mark, making it, at the time, only the third company to achieve that milestone
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Haltia.ai
Started: 2023
Co-founders: Arto Bendiken and Talal Thabet
Based: Dubai, UAE
Industry: AI
Number of employees: 41
Funding: About $1.7 million
Investors: Self, family and friends
The Color Purple
Director: Blitz Bazawule
Starring: Fantasia Barrino, Taraji P Henson, Danielle Brooks, Colman Domingo
Rating: 4/5
SPECS: Polestar 3
Engine: Long-range dual motor with 400V battery
Power: 360kW / 483bhp
Torque: 840Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Max touring range: 628km
0-100km/h: 4.7sec
Top speed: 210kph
Price: From Dh360,000
On sale: September
The specs
Engine: Single front-axle electric motor
Power: 218hp
Torque: 330Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Max touring range: 402km (claimed)
Price: From Dh215,000 (estimate)
On sale: September
Sarfira
Director: Sudha Kongara Prasad
Starring: Akshay Kumar, Radhika Madan, Paresh Rawal
Rating: 2/5
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All the Money in the World
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Four stars
Company profile
Name: Belong
Based: Dubai
Founders: Michael Askew and Matthew Gaziano
Sector: Technology
Total funding: $3.5 million from crowd funding and angel investors
Number of employees: 12
Company Profile
Company name: Hoopla
Date started: March 2023
Founder: Jacqueline Perrottet
Based: Dubai
Number of staff: 10
Investment stage: Pre-seed
Investment required: $500,000