Can climate change affect rice-yields in Telangana? This UoH scholar says yes

Hyderabad: A new research has revealed that the climate change can have a "significant negative impact" on the rice productivity in Telangana.

Raju Guntukula, who is into the fourth year of his PhD at University of Hyderabad, said his research has found that the climate change will have a significant negative impact on the rice productivity in the state.

A scholar from the Department of Economics, Raju has won the Best Paper award from Kakatiya University for his paper titled ‘Do the Climatic Factors Affect the Rice Yields in Telangana’.

Speaking to NewsMeter, the research scholar said his paper was based on empirical research evaluating rainfall and temperature in the state.

“Telangana comes under the semi-arid regions, which is why the agriculture in the state is rain-fed. So, the impact of climate change will be more on rain-fed agriculture. In the case of Telangana, we have found out that that there is a significant negative impact on rice productivity in the state. Same is the case with all southern states,” he said.

Raju noted that this could have severe implications on the food security in the state.

“The empirical results reveal that climate variables such as rainfall and minimum & maximum temperatures have had significant effects on rice yields… The positive effect of rainfall could not counterbalance the adverse effects of maximum and minimum temperatures. The results of the yield variability function reveal that all the climatic variables are risk-decreasing factors for yield variability. This implies that the climatic variables are reducing the rice yield variability in Telangana,” he said.

However, the situation in the north-Indian states is a bit different, according to the scholar.

“The scientific phenomenon Carbon Fertilisation has a role to play in rice productivity. By this phenomenon, the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases the rate of photosynthesis in plants. From my research, this phenomenon has a little positive impact on rice yields. Carbon dioxide emissions can be slightly useful in boosting the productivity of rice, which was evident from the research on north-Indian states,” he said.

For this research, Raju was given the ‘Best paper Award’ at the Fourth Annual Conference of Telangana Economic Association (TEA) held at Kakatiya University, Warangal, on February 15 and 16.

Raju is currently working under the supervision of Professor Phanindra Goyari, School of Economics, University of Hyderabad. His paper is an excerpt from his doctoral thesis on the topic of Economics of Climate Change with respect to Impact, Vulnerability and Adaptation.