The area planted under paddy this year is 13% less than the previous year.
According to government data, the affected paddy areas are in West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Telangana. Also affected are Chhattisgarh and Odisha.
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More on the impact of climate change on rice production:
Climate change and time poverty trap women in a vicious cycle
Climate change disproportionately affects women, placing a heavy burden on their time and labor, owing to their roles on the farm and in the household. About 48% of women in Bangladesh live in disaster-prone areas. Climate shocks result in income and asset losses for the women and their households, affecting their adaptive capacity negatively.
Tackling climate change in agriculture: A critical need for gender-transformative approaches
The gender gap in access to and control over productive assets, resources, and services in agriculture is also well established. Women have limited opportunities to enhance their resilience to climate change due to these gender gaps. Agricultural research and development organizations have been making efforts to reduce the gender gaps, supported by some policy measures. However, the gaps continue to persist and, unless they are addressed, we will not be able to address climate change effectively.
Women rising: Tackling the food and economy crises created by climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic
African and Asian countries were already grappling with extreme weather events when the COVID-19 pandemic struck. For instance, floods and droughts in Niger caused a 12% decline in cereal production in 2019-20. Drought and flooding in 2019 in Zambia resulted in poor harvests of staple crops, like maize, leaving 1.7 million Zambians (18% of the total population) severely food insecure.
