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Learn from the past

Jayanna, a 35-year-old resident of Kothapally in Andhra Pradesh’s Kurnool district, typifies a climate change victim in India. A small farmer, she was about to leave her village, haunted by the worst drought in the last four decades, when on October 2 came the once-in-10,000-years rain, pouring 300 mm of rainfall in three days into a river basin known to receive the country’s lowest rainfall. From being a drought victim, Jayanna is now a flood victim.

Climate change is universal but its impact has a class bias. Like Jayanna, India’s 100 million small farmers suffer from unpredictable weather conditions, the most visible impact of climate change. According to a World Bank report, an increase of two degree centigrade would lead to a loss of 3 to 9 per cent of agricultural income. For a three degree centigrade rise, the report predicts, income losses will be between 3 and 26 per cent. It is a poverty trap for most of India’s 300 million poor who depend on climate-sensitive sectors. This makes climate change a national development challenge as small and marginal farmers contribute over 50 per cent of India’s total agricultural output. On the other hand, climate change-led disasters eat away funding meant for anti-poverty schemes.

Many disaster-stricken states are spending more on relief and rehabilitation than on rural development programmes.

Maharashtra spent more than its entire planned expenditure for irrigation, agriculture and rural development during 2002-07 on managing the floods of 2005 and the drought of 2003. In Orissa, the total loss of livelihood and damage of capital stock due to calamities between 1998 and 2002 was close to 60 per cent of its total 10th five year plan outlay.

But why do we look so helpless in the face of climate change? It is not creating new monsters but droughts, floods and cyclones that we have braved for centuries. Even though 85 per cent of the country is hazard-prone, India has more than 140 years of experience in managing these problems.

Droughts, floods or cyclones are natural hazards — it is our mishandling that is turning them into disasters. In the last five decades, droughts and flood-prone areas have doubled. Containing these disasters is all about climate change adaptation. Substantial parts of our population still use their own methods to manage hazards. This traditional wisdom will play a critical role in how successfully we fight the wide and diverse impacts of climate change.

Drought impacts the largest number of people in India. Let’s go back to Jayanna’s story to see how her village managed to sail through drought: three decades ago, five traditional tanks used to store enough rainwater to sustain two crops, even in a year with 50 per cent deficit rainfall. But gradually they silted up as the nearby forests vanished. The result: today, even a small deviation in rainfall triggers a drought, as there are not enough storage facilities in the village.

Villages in India can fight the impact of climate change locally. India has around seven million traditional tanks and ponds in its six lakh villages. Add to this, one million structures were created under the drought relief programmes in the last three decades and 2.8 million water harvesting structures were made under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.

Studies show that a traditional water harvesting structure can irrigate a minimum of one hectare of land ensuring two crops.

Climate change is of immediate concern to rural communities. The first step should be to pool together local wisdom and resources to insure communities against disasters. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act is an effective tool and the mandatory village plan provision for communities under it can be used to identify problems and offer solutions. Incentives like high wage rate for taking up water conservation and drought proofing works can be brought in. This will help people earn more while ensuring their village is secured from climate change.

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