Internationl Research Journal of Agricultural Economics and Statistics Volume 4 | Issue 1 | March, 2013 | 18-24 Research Paper Impact of global warming on rainfall and wheat production of Amravati district in Vidarbha, India D.T. DESHMUKH AND H.S. LUNGE See end of the paper for ABSTRACT : India is an agricultural country and agriculture production very much depends on temperature and authors’ affiliations rainfall. Mostly agriculture in India is rainfed. Vidarbha is the eastern region of Maharashtra State. Nearly 89 per Correspondence to : cent of cultivated area of Vidarbha is under rain fed farming.Now a days global warming has become a great D.T. DESHMUKH challenge for the agrarian economy of India. This paper analyses the agriculture production of wheat, average Department of Statistics, maximum and minimum temperatures and total rainfall data for eighteen years obtained from IMD, Pune for Brijlal Biyani Science Amravati district of Vidarbha. Regression and correlation analysis is obtained and their significance is tested. It College, AMRAVATI (M.S.) INDIA is observed that minimum temperature is increasing significantly for Amravati district where as rainfall and wheat Email : dtdeshmukh.1721 production revealed decreasing trend. Increased temperature and reduced rainfall affects wheat production in @gmail.com Amravati district. KEY WORDS : Agriculture, Climate Variables, Correlation, Regression, t-test Paper History : Received : 26.07.2012; HOW TO CITE THIS PAPER : Deshmukh, D.T. and Lunge, H.S. (2013). Impact of global warming on rainfall and wheat Revised : 12.01.2013; production of Amravati district in Vidarbha, India, Internat. Res. J. agric. Eco. & Stat., 4 (1) : 18-24. Accepted: 14.02.2013 INTRODUCTION In India, monsoons are getting more variable, less predictable and very extreme. It is projected that by the end of the 21st Agriculture plays a key role in overall economic and social century rainfall over India will increase by 15-40 per cent, and well being of India. Agriculture is an economic activity highly mean annual temperature will increase by 3-60C (NATCOM, dependent on climatic conditions. Rain fed agriculture and 2004). Importantly, April of the year 2010 was reported to the farmers are trapped in a phase of continuous crisis. Temperature warmest individual month ever. Eleven of the last twelve years and rainfall are key factors for agriculture production that will during 1995 to 2006 rank among the 12 warmest years in the affect yield of rainfed crops. India ranks first among the rainfed instrumental record of global surface temperature since 1850. agricultural countries of the world in terms of both extent and Analyses done by the Indian Meteorological Department value of produce. Rainfed agriculture is practiced in two-thirds (IMD) and the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), of the total cropped area of 162 million hectares. In India 65 per Pune, generally show the same trend for temperature, heat cent of agriculture is heavily dependent on natural factors such waves, glaciers, droughts and floods, and sea level rise as by as rainfall, temperature, weather condition etc. In crops, wheat the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of United has been chosen purposively since wheat has played important Nations (Raghava Reddy, 2010). Increase in global temperature role in achieving food security of the country. Global warming will affect the agriculture production in India. This paper becomes an alarming issue of concern in the developing world. analyzes statistically the atmospheric temperature, rainfall and Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of agriculture production data of wheat for Amravati district during the earth’s near surface air and oceans since the mid-twentieth the study period 1988 to 2005. According to IPCC reports, the century and its projected continuation. Global temperature will surface temperature of the earth has risen by 0.6 ± 0.20C over increase by 1.80C to 40C with an overall average increase of the 20th century. The increased temperature resulting from 2.80C in temperature (IPCC, 2007). The average global global warming is likely to reduce the profit from wheat temperature has risen by about 0.80C from pre-industrial level. cultivation. More recent studies done at the Indian Agricultural HIND AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH AND TRAINING INSTITUTE D.T. DESHMUKH AND H.S. LUNGE Research Institute indicate the possibility of loss of 4-5 million MATERIALS AND METHODS tons in wheat production with every rise of 10C temperature throughout the growing period even after considering benefits The data used in this paper are the yearly averages of of carbon fertilization (Agarwal, 2007). Previous studies total mean rainfall, minimum and maximum atmospheric concluded that the dry lands are greatly affected due to climate temperatures. The yearly averages were calculated from the change (Eid et al., 2007, Kurukulasuriya and Mendelsohn, monthly readings which are provided by the India 2008). The problem of effect of global warming on rainfall and Meteorological Department, Pune. Also year wise secondary agriculture production in PNG is studied and observed that data for area, production, and yield of wheat for Amravati district reduced rainfall is affecting the agriculture production of PNG were obtained from ‘Epitome of Agriculture- Part I and Part II’ (Rehman, 2008). It may be noted that in the last 50 years, the published in 2004-05 by State Agriculture Department, Mumbai. rise in temperature has been 0.13± 0.070C per decade. Very Correlation analysis and regression analysis are applied to recently, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration production data as well as to temperature and rainfall data. The (NOAA), climate agency of America, reported that the average p-values are obtained and tested at 5 per cent level of temperature of earth for the first four months of the year 2010, significance. Temperature, rainfall and agriculture production of 13.30 C is 0.690C above the 20th century average. While the global ocean surface temperature was 0.570C above the 20th century average of 160C (Fulekar and Kale, 2010). It was found that temperature increase has significant negative impact on agriculture production. Moreover, an increase in revenue was visualized with the increase in rainfall. The overall extent of negative impact of temperature is greater than the positive effect of rainfall in the region (Shakoor et al., 2011). Rainfed agriculture supports 40 per cent of the India’s population and contributes 44 per cent to the national food basket (Angles et al., 2011). These studies motivate us to study statistically the changes in temperature, rainfall, and agriculture production of wheat in Amravati district. Fig. A : Amravati district map Table A : Year wise data for the eighteen years of Amravati district Year MMIN MMAX TMRF TMRF(J-S) mm Production Yield 0C 0C mm ‘00’ton. (kg/hectare) 1988 22.075 34.4166667 100.64167 247.875 463 1302 1989 21.74545 33.6545455 68.063636 171.175 342 1090 1990 19.33333 33.0416667 95.733333 222.4 365 1185 1991 19.7 34.7416667 43.483333 123.35 128 1153 1992 15.33333 35.0363636 74.745455 190.15 215 1304 1993 14.6 34.25 61.333333 134.55 191 1446 1994 0 31.9 33.52 167.6 229 1452 1995 0 33.55 39.16 - 214 1390 1996 - - - - 244 1574 1997 21.53333 32 122.6 116.4 130 783 1998 20.9 30.925 80.088889 199.46667 249 1283 1999 18.5 33.5583333 83.391667 223.675 325 1609 2000 17.95833 34.3083333 65.583333 155.15 170 1269 2001 17.30833 34.15 58.291667 132.525 150 1325 2002 21.80833 32.3083333 58.183333 166.25 115 1034 2003 21.77273 32.69 47.15 141.45 144 1246 2004 19.675 30.5 41.083333 94.2 120 1164 2005 19.73333 30.775 75.116667 200.15 233 1368 Source: IMD, Pune and district wise Agricultural Statistical Information, Commissionrate of Agriculture, Pune Internat. Res. J. agric. Eco. & Stat. 4(1) March, 2012 : 18-24 HIND AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH AND TRAINING INSTITUTE 19 IMPACT OF GLOBAL WARMING ON RAINFALL & WHEAT PRODUCTION data of wheat are made over the years i.e. time and therefore Chikhaldara as against the district average of 924.56 mm. (36.4 are referred to as time series data, which is defined as a series inches). The soils of the district are derived from the Deccan of observations that varies over time. The time series is made trap (a basaltic rock). up of four components known as seasonal, trend, cyclical and Table Ashows the eighteen years data for mean of irregular (Patterson, 1987). Trend is defined as the general maximum and mean of minimum temperatures, total mean movement of a series over an extended period of time or it is rainfall, and total mean rainfall from the month of June to the long term change in the dependent variable over a long September. The some data for 1996 are not available. period of time (Webber and Hawkins, 1980). Trend is determined by the relationship between the two variables as temperature RESULTS AND DATA ANALYSIS and time, rainfall and time, and agriculture production and time. The statistical methods such as regression analysis, The results obtained from the present investigation as correlation, and coefficient of determination (Murray et al., well as relevant discussions have been summarized under 2000), t-test and p-values are used. following heads: Study area: Linear regression: Recently, Vidarbha region has become infamous for a The linear regression line was fitted using the most large number of farmer suicides occurring. Amravati district is common method of principle of least squares. This method one of the six distressed districts of Vidarbha for which the calculates the best fitting line for the observed data by Government of India and Government of Maharashtra State minimizing the sum of the squares of the vertical deviations have announced the package of relief for the farmers.