Jowar an ideal alternative to wheat in times of increasing temperatures
Without pragmatic changes in managing how wheat is cultivated in India, the yields are likely to decrease by 5 per cent, the research notes
Last year’s March heatwave in India, coupled with the Russia-Ukraine conflict has raised concerns about the country’s dependence on wheat for its staple cereal needs.
Hearwaves in March affected the harvest of this highly vulnerable crop and the international supply chain disruptions due to the Russia-Ukraine crisis led to restricted global wheat supplies and price surge.
At this time, a new research paper has established that traditionally grown jowar (sorghum) can be an ideal alternative to wheat due to its resilience to climate change.
The research paper, titled Climate resilience of dry season cereals in India, is timely and important for India — the world’s second-largest wheat producer — with a whopping 40 per cent increase in production since the early 2000s.
However, increasing temperatures have raised concerns about the crop’s sensitivity to heat, leading to a greater water requirement and a higher water footprint. Jowar, on the other hand, is not only far more resilient to projected climate changes but also requires much less water.
The analysis published in Nature’s Scientific Reports examined the sensitivity of wheat and jowar yields to increases in temperature and compared water requirements under different scenarios.
Without pragmatic changes in managing how wheat is cultivated in India, the yields are likely to decrease by 5 per cent, coupled with a significant increase in water footprint by 2040, the study argued after analysing future climate projections. Jowar, in that case, is India’s best bet with its meagre 4 per cent increase in water footprint with the same climatic projections.
The study was carried out by researchers from Columbia University, US; Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences; Indian School of Business; University of Delaware, US; Indian Institute of Technology Bombay; Yale University, US; and Washington State University, US.
Focusing on these two main rabi cereals in India — wheat and jowar — this research highlighted the need for climate-smart agriculture interventions, specifically in the rabi season. The research examined historical patterns and trends of rabi cereal production in India. It compared temperature sensitivity and water requirements for both cereals and assessed their sensitivity of yields and water requirements to increasing temperatures in the future.
The researchers found that wheat is highly sensitive to increases in maximum daily temperature in its multiple stages of growth during the post-monsoon, dry winter season. In comparison, jowar can handle temperature increases with far less impact on yields.
In addition, wheat requires 1.4 times more water than jowar owing to the extension of its growth cycle into summer.
“The traditionally grown sorghum or jowar emerges as a game-changer, offering resilience to projected climate changes and requiring significantly less water than wheat,” said professor Ashwini Chhatre, the co-author of the study and executive director of Bharti Institute of Public Policy, Indian School of Business.
India is the second largest producer of wheat globally after China and exports its surplus yield to neighbouring countries of Bangladesh, Nepal, Afghanistan, Somalia and Sri Lanka. The trend of increasing wheat production in India began with the Green Revolution in the 1960s and continues till date.
The total wheat production in the country has gone up since the turn of the century (average of 1998–2002 relative to average of 2012–2017) due to both increases in yield (26 per cent) and area (17 per cent).
The production of jowar, on the other hand, declined by 5 per cent in the same period. This decline was despite a 37 per cent increase in yields and was attributed to a 21 per cent loss in the area under production.
Agriculture scientists have been advocating against the trends in India towards expanding wheat cultivation from the north into hotter parts of the country.
“The paper rightly highlighted the need for immediate diversification from mainstream cereals such as wheat to sorghum due to increasing temperature post monsoons. In addition to sorghum, based on agroecology, the policy space could explore millet crops such as pearl millet (bajra), finger millet (ragi), foxtail millet, barnyard millet, etc, as suitable replacement for rice or wheat,” said Arabinda Padhee, IAS, principal secretary, Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment, Government of Odisha.
A renewed focus on jowar also aligns with the government’s focus on millets for nutrition and climate resilience, besides the much-needed emphasis on protection for marginal farmers in the Indian context.
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