India's climate and harvests are linked

Big News Network.com
Tuesday 5th December, 2006 (UPI)

U.S. scientists say a cut in human-generated air pollution could create unexpected agricultural benefits in India -- one of the world's poorest regions.

University of California researchers say rice harvests increased dramatically in India during the Green Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, making that nation self-sufficient in its staple food.

But harvest growth has slowed since the mid-1980s, raising concerns that food shortages could recur in the densely populated nation. Several explanations for the slowdown have been proposed but, until now, none took into account the complex interactions of pollution-related sources of climate change: atmospheric particulates and global warming.

Maximilian Auffhammer at University of California-Berkeley and V. Ramanathan and Jeffrey Vincent, researchers at University of California-San Diego, analyzed historical data on Indian rice harvests and examined the combined effects of atmospheric particulates and greenhouse gases on growing conditions. They found the combined effects were greater after the mid-1980s, coinciding with the slowdown in harvest growth.

The scientists estimate harvests would have been up to 25 percent higher during part of the 1990s if the negative climate impacts had not occurred.

The study appears online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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