Climate Change On Your Plate | ft. Sanjeeb Mukherjee

[Podcast intro]

Welcome to the season five of the India Energy Hour podcast. This podcast explores the most pressing hurdles and promising opportunities of India energy transition through an in depth discussion on policies, financial markets, social movements and science. Your hosts for this episode are Shreya Jai, Delhi based energy and climate journalist and Dr. Sandeep Pai, Washington based energy transition researcher and author. The show is produced by 101 reporters, a pan India network of grassroots reporters that produces original stories from rural India. If you like our podcast, please rate us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or the platform where you listen to our podcast. Your support will help us reach a larger audience.

Climate crisis unfolding in India will first impact our plates! 

Farms lands, agri commodities, coastal areas are in ten first line of impact from climate change induced extreme weather conditions. Not only does it spike the cost of food, several researchers say it alters its taste and texture too. Close to 60% of India population is dependent on farming as primary employment. Extreme weather is now playing huge role in food inflation in India. 

To understand what is happening to our food givers and how the Indian economy can cope up, we talked with Sanjeeb Mukherjee, Agriculture Editor, Business Standard. 

Mukherjee has been a journalist for more than two decades and has been closely covering India’s rural, agriculture sector and the food economy. An incisive reporter, Mukherjee regularly travels across the country to understand the changes on the ground, innovations which are making our farmlands better and what the other India outside our cities want.

[end]

[Podcast interview]

Sandeep Pai: Hello, Sajee, thank you so much for joining the new episode of India Energy Hour. We are absolutely delighted to have you. I’ve read many of your articles over the years so it’s truly a pleasure to have you come here and share your thoughts on, on some really important topics of the day. So thank you so much for joining.

Sanjeeb Mukherjee: Thank you, thank you Sandeep for having me this show and I also have been very keenly looking forward to this and hopefully we’ll have a very interesting discussion in the next hour or so and we’ll be able to touch many of the topics that we want to discuss and take it up.

Sandeep Pai: Yeah, wonderful. So I think in as you may know in our podcast first start with the guest and you know about and we spend some time, kind of 10ish minutes to understand about like you know how, how the person got into the space, how did they get excited, interested in the topic. So let me start with that, you know that segment which is basically you know you have been a journalist for over two decades, what’s been your journey like, you know, you’ve seen so many changes within journalism. and specifically how did you come about to focus on the agriculture sector, which is you know, at the heart of India’s sort of like identity, if I can say. So yeah, like let’s just start with that. Understanding your background, your entry into journalism, your work over the years and finally your focus on agriculture.

Sanjeeb Mukherjee: Right. So as it said many times that sometimes you chance upon things and sometimes you deliberately do things. So mine was a combination of both. So I didn’t choose journalism as a profession but it was the other way around. Journalism chose me as one of as my profession in that sense. So I was happily doing a lot of things and happily preparing for my, as most people in my hometown do for our professional life in management and it background and with engineering, medical and other things. So I was also preparing to be a management grad. But then I was always interested in general knowledge, in general awareness and reading books and reading of newspapers. Current affairs. I was very deeply interested in current affairs which many people are because when you prepare for civil services or even you prepare for competitive exams and other way. Right? Also I was always interested into current affairs barring except for the fact outside the fact that preparing for any competitive exam. So as it has happened that I was happily doing my studies and preparing for examination. But then I also got an opportunity to write in those in one of the local newspapers and that was by chance because one of their guys had left and they were looking for filling a vacancy in the afternoon s slog which is the magazine section of a newspaper where you have to come in afternoon and you leave by evening. Which is not the gill the daily reporters grind.

 Sandeep Pai: Right?

Sanjeeb Mukherjee: They had applied and sent her ah, this thing. So I thought why not? Because I was preparing in the morning hours I used to have my tu and evening hours I used to have other engagements. Why not? I invest my some amount of money, some amount of time in that. So it will help me in building something and it will also meet my daily monthly expenses for my growing up yearsers. So in that way I just chanced upon getting into that. So I just went in, walked into a newspaper’s office saying that I heard you had a vacancy. I am a rookee. this thing, I don’t know anything about this profession. I have written something. I am interested in current affairs. So if you find me eligible I can. I am a candidate. So the editor There was like no, it doesn’t happen like that. M I was a young guy at that time. You just can’t walk into somebody’s office and ask for a job and you have to come through a process. Have you applied for that an so no, I have got nothing. Do you have a cv? No, I don’t have anything. I have never this thing but I’INTERESTED so he just gave me a paragraph to write or something. Why don’t write this thing? So I said I’ll all right. So I wrote and I left it at him at his place and came back to my home. And then after some time he gave me a call that look, we don’t have any vacancy there in the general reporting team. You are still this thing. Why don’t you join as has been applied for in the magazine section. So that way I got interested. I thought you fair enough, it’s a part time thing. Let me go. Well, I am applying for my competitive exams as well and maybe in the next six, seven months my competitive results will come and I’ll stop this. But then as fate would have my competitive exams came. I cleared but I the part which was, which was a part time job hooked on to me because I gradually realized it was a thing which was to my liking. So I got an entry into a management college as well through a proper statewise competitive exam. I even went through the grind of all the things but then I took an admission. I did classes for three, four months also. But then I realized this is not my true calling. My true calling is still was the thing which was I was doing as a part time job. So I told my family, my parents that I don’t want to continue with my management this thing. I want to continue with journalism. So obviously as you know in the middle class family there are a lot of pushbacks from the parents side because they have a very set pattern of career growth and most of the people there in small towns do have a set pattern of career growth. They said, you know then journalism when I started was not as widespread. It was well known but it was not as widespread as it is now. The options were very limited. Television was just about coming up and television was largely region national. There was no websites or online media. Wasn’t there newspapers and televisions and as I said television was just coming at surround. So that is the way I got into what you call what is journalism. And then obviously my parents or my family insisted that if you want to continue with your profession and journalist you have to do it in a proper manner. Don’t just go into it. You have to take a degree you have to take the. I obviously I applied for the journalism schools got into through them and then I started working. Initial days were very tough in Delhi because that was the time when your.com boom was coming up but is going bust kind of thing the 2000 the Y2K thing and around 992000 and all those small websites like Redieff and others were hiring people and also not hiring pushing out people. So there was some Hindustan Times had a website in those days which was hiring a lot of people but they were all requiring. So the journey started like that gradually Then I moved to I used to cover corporate reporting init very initially I as to do features Then obviously I started with corporate reporting companies and other things but then as I said in the first part f you choose something your fate choose other thing for you. So it so happened that a job opportunity came for me in in a small town I have to go back. I had to go back to my hometown which is Indore Madya Pradesh and the opportunity was good but the beat wasn’t what I was doing. So they wanted me to do agriculture reporting but their package was very good but they only had a vacancy for agricultural potrol But I had to move out move to Indore. The package was one of the important factors in those that time So I obviously said okay I’ll do agriculture reporting and when I was working in features also I was slightly interested in development kind of stories. So I used to rite for bit of on Delhi in those days. I don’t know whether you guys remember or not in those days DTC buses were being phased out in Delhi and there was a big big controversy of DTC buses being phased out. They were being replaced by CNG buses during initial years of Sila Dixshit or this thing and there was this down to earth had run a full campaign against DTC buses polluting DTC buses. Supreme Court took for then all of a sudden one final day all DTC buses went off Delhi roads one morning everything stopped because there were not many CNG buses then the CNG buses were just coming up but the Supreme Court just clamped down and said could stop DTC operation of DTC bussus in Delhi. So I did features I did features for statesmen in those days on how this was a kind of decision which is inspired by environmental concern but has and there was chaos across the city in those days. I remember we walked some 5, 7 km in South Delhi to catch the first bus because buses went top and buses were dropping off people. So few days there were a lot of chaos across the city. And So then gradually I obviously my career growth happened. I went back as I said I went back to Indore. I started agriculture reporting and because they had a vacancy for agriculture reporting and I generally liked agriculture reporting and Indor is a very big place for soyyabean. It’s oil seed capital. Soy bean is a very huge place huge crop there. So obviously I used to go to Mandis, I used to go to meet the farmers, the traders and I was working in a news wire in those days where you used to file, you have to file stories at very quick pace. So from there I got a chance to work in a foreign publication called Dow Jones. So Dow Jones used to have a wire setup in Delhi in India in those days. Now it has been taken over by Wall Street Journal. So it’s part of the Wall Street General Group now. So Dow was a big break and Dow wanted a people to cover commodities and agric from Bombay because commodities market was booming in those days. Around 2004 onwards, 20034 commodity markets were at a peak. So everything was very pricey. Those were the days pre post your lemon crisis of 20078 so I got a chance to work in Dow Jones. I went to Dow Jones Mumbai. I worked there. I used to cover commodities as well as shipping so I used to go quite regularly to JN PT and other places and JPT is not that JN P of today. So JNPT in those days you have to get down at a certain point to take a tech cab or go to a long place. J NP was quite outside the city. Now in those days it’s still outside the city but now I heard there lot lot of good connectivity to JNPT so I used to every week I used to go to JNPT to get the ship data. So JNPT in it still has I don’t know whether is physical or online nowadays in those days they used to come out with a ship landing data commodity wise. So like if you have, if you have a oils or edible oil ship coming from say Malaysia they will give you that MV Vikrana something something 25,000 tons. So that has had an impact on the commodity markets used to have. Because if Say five ships are coming of one commodity and if you get hold of that information that next week four ships are being docked in jpt two three containing palm oil and one containing soybean oil from say some buyer in Argentina or something. So you can. Those were market influencing information and foreign buyers are very, very hungry about such kind of information. So I used to get that every week I as to travel all the way to jnpt, get that, file a story and come back. so that was one of the experiences. I then gradually obviously I then I left. I shifted to Delhi in Dow Jones. I worked in TW JO Delhi where I worked where I covered the agriculture ministry as well as the steel. Then those days I used to cover y steel ministry. So that was my min ministerial before that also in between I had joined UN I in Delhi also before moving to bo Endor. So as I said I a and corporate reporting. So I used to cover corporate bitats in textile and one more, I think one more wasn’ti Then I joined then Indor. From Indor I went to Dow Jones Bombay, Dow Jones Bombay came to Dow Mumbai Delhi again to cover ministries. Then obviously I joined FE and from there FE I came to ds and then agriculture stuck on with me. I never left agriculture since in those days. So it has been there always. So my beat never changed, my organization kept on changing and in Bs I’m there for since 2000 onwards. And obviously I have traveled in Bs to several of the places I’ve traveled in FE also in many places. So these are small bits of what I have done so far. So as I said agriculture has always been part of me. And then over the years I obviously it is an interesting beat because if you see this is a beat which is ever changing, right? And agriculture always gives you stories as people say because lot of, lot of things which are which keep on happening in agriculture. So more things change, more things remain the same in this. That’s what my. You can’t say it’s a very cryptic way of looking at things. But yes it has been, it has been like that because there are certain fundamental issues with farming in India which never goes off.

Sandeep Pai: This is fascinating. So I just kind of nodding and acknowledging this is such a enriching journey from you know like just from a completely different field to landing into journalism then. I mean one thing that I really appreciate in this is you have pretty much a very good ground up experience a lot of People, you know, who work on some topics usually start or sometimes start at the top and they have a really good top down, understanding. But I mean what I appreciate is like you know, you worked in Indore and you worked in like not Bombay, Delhi, but and then moved up and still go back and do that kind of reporting. So I think it’s, I think it shows in your writing. So I appreciate that. but I was curious about one question, in this whole journey and as you said, agriculture stuck with you. I’m just curious, just from a reporting point of view, what changes have you seen over the years? I mean of course agriculture is in transition. Some things remain same, others like you said, are changing. But how has reporting itself, how do reporters look at agriculture as a sector has changed over time.

Sanjeeb Mukherjee: So if you ask me from a very, very detached kind of thing, agriculture reporting over the years might not have changed much because fundamentally, as I said, a lot of things in agriculture in India is still the same as it was when I started doing reporting or maybe if I can say even before me, right. So one of the very important factors is that in Indian agriculture or Indian agriculture reporting, the intervention of state is very, very deep rooted, right? In Indian agriculture, the state intervention is very, very deep rooted. It still remains the same. State hasn’t pushed his hand out. Second, as you said, the importance of climate, importance of monsoon is still very, very, very important in Indian agriculture. and that is primarily because your irrigation potential has grown, but not grown to the fullest extent. So these are certain things. And third, very fundamental thing, land sizes are very small. So any big decision or any big things has happened in agriculture. But there are a lot of challenges in pushing them up from the point of view of reporting. If you see, as I said, the state intervention remains very strong, very strong. When I started reporting or even before me, it still is very strong within the sector. The state intervention, the state role, the role of the government in pushing or in making changes or incorporating certain things into the sector is still very strong. But yes, what has happened over the last few years or decades is that gradually the rep. Reportage has become more farmer centric, which is very good. Earlier many of the people who used to report, except for var, I won’t say m, all of them, except for very few of them, they were very, very, very government reportage or very corporatized rep reportage. Now a lot of people, a lot of young journalists I have seen or when I go to meet people outside or if you See the local reportage, local newspaper reporting which always was very grounded in agriculture. You know the best agriculture reportage in India is done by the small local journalists because they actually have the field for the ground. They know what is happening on ground, what impact the central policy is making on ground what kind of changes is happening on the ground because of that central intervention or the state intervention. So these guys where earlier very kind of very small or very localized now they have got a big platform through Twitter or what you call xNow or Facebook these guys are coming into limelight. And also from the national side or maybe from the state side Lot of this the concerns of the farmers and concerns on farming side or the farmers views are getting increasingly incororporated into report side also. It’s not always the view from the top. It’s also the The view from the ground which is coming into people’s stories and people’s understanding of agriculture is which should always have been the case. I am not sure whether it was there. It must have been there in local reportage. Local reporting is always very grounded Hindi papers if you see language papers if you see their agriculture reporting is far far ahead of what anybody else has done in this country. So if you see there has to be a. A long time back statesmen used to be very very interesting and very important paper. So Statesman was one of the first to start a award on agriculture reporting national award on agriculture reporting. And every time or maximum time there was a paper called Harib Bumi in is still there in Uttra Pradesh and a paper calledadesh in Madhya Pradesh. These two are papers who used to get those award for rudural reporting and agriculture reporting. Because agriculture reporting is rural reporting was deeply interlinked right? Because agriculture is a very important part of the rural economy. So these are the papers journalists from these two papers used to get the maximum awards in Statesman Rural report reporting award. I’m not sure whether the award still exists or not. Maybe some other it is in some other form of that. So what I I’TRYING to say is that the overall rep. Reportage has improved from the point of view of incorporating the voice of the farmers. Secondly obviously it was the role of Agrite Agrite companies. Agrite Agrite as you in the last 107 years digitization and digital properties have grown in all fields. Similarly in agriculture also there are a lot of agric tech companies and people do report a lot of on agri tech companies. There are specific websites who do stories purely on ag tech companies. They do agri tech companies also. And the third if you ask me, another problem is it’s a very disorganized sector. It’s a very individualistic setup. Agriculture is not a very community driven system in India. It’s a very individualistic setup. and if you see FPOs and cooperatives, yes they are, but they are very small proportion of the total number of farmers. They are the cultivization efforts have been going on since independence but. And they, they have grown also in over the years. But the success stories as you say of collectives are very few and far between. Still then, still now, at least in agriculture this thing.

Sandeep Pai: Right, right, right, fascinating. I have so many questions to it which I could just spend time on agriculture and reporting. But let me move the focus to just the focus of the show which is also climate change. So first I have two, two part question. First, first part of the question is like agriculture as a beat obviously existed for a long time but when did climate started coming in stories about linking agriculture with climate or impacts of climate on agriculture etc. That’s part one of the question. And how has that journey been? Is it much more reporting to you? Insert not you specifically but to journalists mostly like in most of the agriculture story you find some kind of climate les. So what has been that journey, when did it start of bringing climate into agriculture? The second part of this question that I have is has climate, because of this climate focus, has agriculture become a more glamorous beat? I mean it has always been very important but has it become more kind of mainstreamed or glamorous? so I’m just curious before we get into like more you know, substantive questions, I just wanted to understand the parameters.

Sanjeeb Mukherjee: So agriculture in report, climate change in agriculture reporting. it was always there but it has been there. Agriculture impact of climate change and agriculture has been felt for a pretty long time. I’m not saying there is any specific date if I can remember. Maybe post Green Revolution only things started moving towards the post Ah as everything 70s 80s impact have started feeling on of climate change in agriculture, this thing. But gradually over the years it has become more in more intense and more people are also aware of impact of climate change because that what you call people. It is becoming very visible nowadays Ma. It is gradually it is becoming very visible the impact of climate change and agriculture and reporters are also taking care of that and there are lot of as I said there are A lot of independent news organizations, not the mainstream ones, outside the mainstream ones who do very good work on impact of climate change and agriculture. Because there are people I know who have been working on climate change issues since long and they have been focusing on agriculture as well. Means there are a lot of ground level NGOs who do such work and there is a lot of the thing but this awareness We can’t pinpoint a year when then transition started happening. Maybe post liberalization things started moving more towards because people were getting more exposed to the new media which is coming up and opening up also open people to new vistas, new global global news organizations where they could get into this thing. But what I’m getting into trying to Observe or what or what I’observbed also is that this gradually is becoming more pronounced earlier. Maybe if we can say we had a crop failure say maybe twice in a decade or thrice in a decade because of climate change. Now every year every crop is getting impacted by climate change over the gradually. So this is where the transition is coming. Your government is becoming very aware. Government has become aware. There have. Government was always but has been aware because there have a lot of missions on making climate resilient agriculture practices. Your this thing but now it has become much more urgent, it has become more, more intense on their face kind of thing that it is because no season is going without an impact of climate change on agriculture. There’no season, there’s not a single season which is going like that. So you, and from that you have to develop your farming. And as I said the challenges have grown, challenges haven’t remained as they are. So if you see the growth rate of agriculture, agriculture growth long term agriculture growth in India is hardly 4% 3, 5% the average is 3.5 to 4%. And this has been for three decades, around three, three and a half decade. I don’t know when, when it, when it was below that. So if you see the long term trend agriculture is absolutely flat. Right? But the question is the people dependent on agriculture they have gone down but not ah at the pace at which they should have been. So still 44, 50, 44, 46% of your population is dependent on agriculture but the growth rate hasn’t moved a bit. Growth rate, the long term growth rate has remained the same. On top of that your new challenges come off facing the climate disturbance every year. So you have to produce your produce. from a reporting this is just non Outside the reporting. So if you have to produce a, it’s a very academic kind of argument, you to produce little more from lesser amount of land with higher amount of people. So with. With relatively I. Relatively more. More people. So that is the challenge. And of course reporting is reflecting that. Reporting, earlier may not have been reflecting, as I said, the local journalists were doing, but they not. They might. They were also not very sensitized with what is the climate change part of it. You know, it is a overall global phenomenon or a phenomenon which is related to climate change. Now even the local journalists know is Jalayu Parivan, as they call in Hindi, say he lot of things are happening because things are happening on ground very fast, very frequently and very repeatedly. That’s why this thing.

Sandeep Pai: Right. For sure. Great. so just one question and then one short question and then I want to So the first question I want to ask is like why should we care about agriculture in India? And I’m asking this because we have a very global audience who may not have thought about it. So if you can help establish the scale of what we are talking about, that’be great. And then the second question I have on that is like 2024 was the hottest year on record and you’ve been tracking this so closely. what impact did it have on Indian agriculture?

Sanjeeb Mukherjee: Okay, so why should we care about Indian agriculture? We should care about Indian agriculture because almost 50% of the country’s population is still dependent directly or indirectly on this. Why should we care about Indian agriculture? We should care about Indian agriculture because still 17% of your GDP comes from this sector. why should we care about Indian agriculture? Because we are one of the largest consumers of lot of things. Maybe, food grains, edible oils, vegetables. Well, we are a population of 140 million, so we consume hell lot of things. We are also, one of the largest producers of lot of things. The largest produce of grains, largest producer, the largest produce of sugar, largest produce, so a lot of vegetables. But our domestic consumption is on. Is huge, very huge market. And we need to care about Indian agriculture because we, as I said earlier because, our land sizes are growing, small. Our resources are getting scarce. Our population dependent on farming is going down. But our technologies are, Our productivity is not at par with the global standards. Our productivity, of most of the crops, barring very few, I don’t think there have any crop in India which is whose productivity matches the global level. That is why. These are the four, five reasons why you need to care about Indian agriculture, we need to feed people. We can’t be depend. And we had a very bad experience of depending on global imports. So when India enters any import market it imports huge. So if you are importing edible oil we import almost more than half of what Malaysia produces. If you import edible oil we import more than 40% of what Indonesia produces. We import 16 million 13 million tons of edible oils annually. So when, so these are the dynamics when India starts importing. If, if India’s agriculture is not self sufficient or not self dependent or if it is we should not, if it stop caring about Indian agriculture these imports will grow manifold. And when imports grow obviously your economy will dwindle like anything because it is a big number. It will always be a big number. So we don’t import in 2 tons or 2 consignments or 2 shipments. No, we import in 50 shipments kind of things because we are a big country. So that is where the, that is where we need to care about Indian agriculture because that is where Indian agriculture should be on the forefront of many of the policy making decisions or discussions as such. The point number two is on your question on global on India 2024 being the hottest year. So 2024 was one is the hottest year. But there have been precedences where years have been hot moments. This record is getting broken every year of being this thing. So I was talking to one of those environmentalists and metorogist. They were saying that the target of 1.5 degree increase in temperature by 2100 is going to be met within next 50 years. It may be 19, 2047 only your earth will go warmer by 1.5 degrees Celsius. I’m sorry I’m slightly weak in this part. My colleague Shia is a much more expert in this. But this is what is generally is. Now the question is if you, if you’ if your climate is getting hotter in Indian in 2024 what impact it had. So if you see around May there was a sharp increase in temperature in India, right. And it crossed toed almost 50 degrees. There was a phase of 50 degree centigrade days of near 50 degree temperatures in North India which was followed by very heavy rains. Right. So what had happened is I, I know May June or May April May not very big agriculture months. But this created a very whatever milk production was going to happen. The lean season in milk came early. So lean season because of the such a sharp rise in your milk, in your heat temperatures, your even the summ winters were very very warr warmer last year. This year also winter is warmer. So what has happened is that that production has impacted. Your milk production has gone down. Do we have a stocks of skam milk powder which will keep us away from any point of importing. But there are a lot of crops which got impacted. Your onion production got impacted which led to a spike in August, September prices of onion. So this is a phenomenon which is happening every year. So year before that what if you see your summers are now no longer getting. It’s starting early. So if 2024 was warr warmest year in Indian industry. 2025 is also not good because if you see this year, the year that we are currently in we are already having a temperature. I was just looking at the IMD data today. So Saddarjhan has recorded a maximum temperature. Sabdajhan is a place in Delhi has recorded a maximum temperature in class 24 hours till 5:30 which is 3.5 degree more than normal. And we are sitting in the month of January, end of January. Your summers have already come. Now wheat is in the field, right? Wheat needs prolonged, not prolonged but at least sizable amount of mist in the morning. And you what to call fog which settles down on in the wheat crop and it helps it to not break away. Otherwise if the temperature rises during the pod for or your grain formation stateage grain breaks down breaks and the wheat yields go down. So if what we are seeing today if if there is no change in temperature which IMD has said there won’t be any big change in temperature because IMD this time as predicted a warmer than normal winter. Okay so in December, January, February. So this winters are warmer than normal. So your temperatures are moving up. Your wheat crop is getting impacted. There is a lot of scare in the market which is why your wheat crop will be impacted which is why your wheat prices are not coming down below 30 330,000 3,3 400 per qule. Wheat prices are high because traders feel that are there will be a shortage of wheat because this temperature is not very good. Point number one. Point number two. Your mustard production is also getting impacted because of this the temperatures of sudden rising. If your mastard production goes up, your mustard goes down, your edible oil total domestic production will go down and you will be again dependent on increasing your imports. Your bill depending on imports to feed your country. So a foreign exchange will go away. Your price will be controlled by Someone from outside will be determined by the Global factors. So in every season and every year there is a change in climate which is impacting the agriculture production. I think it’s globally there. India it is far more intense. As I said, the Indian challenges are very different from what it is say in European country or American country now this year. Why, why the temperatures are rising as IMD has explained because the Laina which was expected to set in in the month of December Laina never came. So the problem here is that Lanina has not come. And you. There is a possibility that by if Lanina does not come by the time March, April 11that spring something, something happens, it might turn into El Nino. So from a good monsoon. Last year was a very good monsoon year. We had surplus, 8% surplus rain within one year. You are seeing staring at a situation where you could have a deficient monsoon in 2025. I’m saying so my question is this is happening has been happening as I’m not saying this is happening for the first time or I am only seeing it or maybe some other person is seeing it. But this change or transition to me has become far more quicker and frequent nowadays. Which is why your adaptation capability should be far more improved nowadays. You should not be sitting back and thinking you know take ex salo production Milkia, let, let’s sleep over it. No you can’t do. And I think is a. There is a understanding in the government about this. There is understanding in the state ministries also about this. So what has the Ministry of Agriculture done? They have which is again they have prepared a dashboard which gives you real time feedback on where the crop condition and what is the moisture content. So this was always there. I’m not saying it’s again this was always there but it was hidden somewhere in some department, some ministries, some IMD center, some IITM Pune, some satellite would have been capturing this data and giving it to a crop weather watch group which used to meet in once in a week to discuss but now they have made it a real time analysis of real time monitoring of the crop situation. The crop condition, the heat stress, the what the groundwater level. This the meditate dashboard in the minister’s office very very very very monitors every year and takes corrective measures as obviously agriculture, a lot of it is within the state domain. State has to understand. They also have their meetings every second day in a week. I think Tuesday. They have now fixed Monday or Tuesday where they will meet to understand the condition of the crop. So I think there is a realization within the government this is a thing which they should be looking at much more intently. And the impact is far bigger impact is much more deeper. Your fisheries, as we reported, your fishery production, inland fish rep production is going down because of climate change. Your Maran fish rep production is going down because of climate change. You have to go more deeper into the sea because to get that amount of catch. So all these factors are there. But when yield goes down in a country like India where 86, 85% of your farmers is small and marginal, very limited source of income, your, the income of the farming community does not grow up go up. And if the income of the farming community does not go up, your rural economs don’t come up. And if rural does not go up, your sale of consumer durables, fmcg, M tractor, two wheelers, mobile phones all come down because rural is a substantial part of a consumption story. So broader economics is this. So it has to be, it has to be linked somewhere.

Sandeep Pai: I just wanted to ask one question. This is really interesting. You covered several different aspects of how it’s impacted and the different commodities are impacted. I just wanted to understand what has been the cost implication. Like is it possible to quantify what has been the increase, let’s say in 2024, and how much inflation that cost or contributed. And I think I remember reading your piece about Indian Thali getting costlier. So yeah, if you can shed any light on the cost implication of that.

Sanjeeb Mukherjee: So if I remember the inflation means whatever inflation in pulses last year which was 46, 47% was primarily because of the drop in tour production. tour and UR production. Tour production largely tool production dropped because suddenly in Karnataka there were heavy rains during the harvesting time which damaged the crop. So this is unseen. This is unexpected. So it is an impact of climate change. Karnatak to crop got damaged because of heavy rains and which is why you started importing and the prices moved up because your domestic crop got suffered. So if I can quantify, I don’t know exactly, it would be difficult to say how much has been the inflation impact of climate change. But whatever impact of food inflation has been on crops like potatoes, potatoes I think tomatoes also were higher. This is primarily because of climate change. All the prices were price rise is because of impact of weather on climate change. And this is very sudden as I spoke to the IMD DG that he was saying it’s very difficult to predict for us or even we don’t know if the rains today Say we have predicted some two millimeter or one and a half millimeters of rainfall in a certain area in a certain region. And there’s one region where it falls 5 millimeters that day. So because it is, it is, it is happening like that. So it’s very difficult for us to predict also. But if you see the impact of food inflation, most of the food inflation or inflation impact is not because the supplies are inadequate. It’s our crop, area is inadequate. No, most of the impact of the food inflation is because the yield have, is not because every year if you see the areage, areage is growing. Areage is normal. Areage is more than normal. So grain wheat takeage this time is 30 to 33 million hectares which is more than normal. But the yield is not there because we don’t know whether by March this temperature will touch 40. If it touches 40, then your crop is gone. What will you do with the area I create? So what, what I’m trying to say is that whatever inflation impact you are seeing in food crops or food inflation or your thi getting costlier is costly because compared to last year is primaryly because of impact of climate change or crop harvest.

Sandeep Pai: Right, Great. I mean I think this is really interesting. It gives a really good perspective of what’s the changes that are happening on the ground and how that has a ripple effect across the economy. Let’s spend the last, you know, segment on kind of the response of the government or other stakeholders. So you started touching up about like how there is more data monitoring which is really positive when you need data, to actually do anything to measure impact will help with policy. So I’m wondering like how is the policy landscape changing with government, are they investing more in early warning systems, crop insurance, and what else is happening from the government side to manage this changing climate and its impact on agriculture.

Sanjeeb Mukherjee: So this is a very important question because you know, impact of climate change on agriculture or agriculture or rural industry or rural sector. Much of it owners will lie on how the government responds to and what, what is the policy response to. Because scientists are doing the job, economists are doing their job, your researchers are doing the job. But it is the government which has to act as a facilitator for all this. And government has to realize key, there is no more time to sit. It is over. You have to have your climate resilient plan ready. Not only the plan ready, you have to implement on it, ground. From today there’s no Tomorrow for this, tomorrow’s time is over because you won’t be able to feed your people for next 100 years if you don’t start acting now. And the basis of this and the basic, basic for this is start first as I said first, realization within the government second. Obviously using technology to monitor as they are doing. You get a real time feel of all the stuff. And then you have to act as a facilitator. Facilitator in the sense you have to have climate. And my only only thesis in this, it’s not mine. whatever I have experienced or whatever I’ve spoken to people, whatever I understand from experts is that you have to invest on research and technology. Research is your backbone through which you will have to fight a climate change. In agriculture there is no other way. You can’t have systems in place where you grow crop and then you plant a seed variety which gives you which is not resistant to heat and then you let the loss happen because of heat wave. You have to have varieties, you have to have seeds, you have to have technologies which are resistant to climate change. So you have to have rise which can withstand 30, 40 days of lodging as you call completely submberggen in water. And that rice variety should be available to every farmer in India, right? Okay. Because monsoons are not It won’t happen that your rain is spread evenly across three months. There will be periods when it is raining heavily and your crop is lodged for 15 days, 20 days. This neck deep water in the rice field. Your and that can happen at any point of any stage in your crop life cycle. Maybe at the seed stage, at the just before harvesting stage when it is ready to harvest. You have to have seeds which can withstand that this thing or you can have also you can. You have to have rice varieties which is. Which is grown in completely no water. So like in eastern India, in Jhark and in Chapisgar, there were no monsoon till August this year. So shall the farmer wait till August? Because if he starts planting his ice seeds rise in August, he will won’t get a yield which is commensurate with what is the average yield. Is that because from September on September end winter starts, your monsoon period is shortened to just two months. So he won’t get a yield which is equivalent to four months or monsoon or three months or monon rains. So he used to, he needs to have a seed variety which is withstand the dry weather. Now this is one part. So in every crop you need to have seeds you need to have technologies, you need to have, you need to do research, you need to do genome editing. You need you need to do all sorts of things. I’m not taking, I’m not taking the name of the forbidden genetically modified. Because yes, genetically modified is a controversial subject. Let, let leave us apart. There are other technologies which has also come into the picture which can, which is this thing and those seeds have to be developed. The research is going on the research. But nobody is saying Indian researchers haven’tblet seeds but their extension services should be there should be much more robust so that the farmer gets hand hold of there. If you build a seed in your lab and then you said was po jag farm. No, it won’t happen like that. The farmer has to get hold of that seed at a reasonable price in his doorstep. You do everything possible for that because and you have to increase your research budget. You have to increase the research this thing. So there is a small bit of anecdotal evidence I can give, I can share. It’s a very small for this thing. So India, India usually spends Indian state spending on Indian research is roughly around 10,000, 12,000 crores annually. A big multinational seed company, multinational agriculture sciences company, I won’t name it because we don’t take names here. And spends roughly US$2 billion on just one crop research crop, on developing climate resistant crop research in its labs. So this is where the difference lies. So you have to have investments in your research and technology, you have to have technologies, you have to have. And third and the most important part in that you have to have mechanisms, insurance. Insurance is another thing which can save the farmer which can give him some sort of risk awareness. So even if his crop fails, he gets a certain amount of money from that investment that he has made. Insurance is one part of fighting climate change. Your the technological innovations like you don’t do that deep sea dredging or you do some kind of other things to get the fish out of that and your investment on research. So these things have to move to fight climate change. There’s no other way because there’as I said, there’s no time to wait. It’s not waiting for anyone. Every week, every year we are seeing some crop getting impacted by this and this will go on happening.

Sandeep Pai: Fantastic. I mean I think R and D is a perennial problem in different sectors in the Indian economy. let me jump to the last and final question. And you know, as a journalist, as a storyteller, would love to Hear one or two stories about we talked about how government is thinking about it, what needs to be done from the government side. But are there any stories from the field of people and you know, farmers, who are trying to adapt to climate change, and managing it successfully on the ground. I know you travel a lot so I wonder if you have one or two stories to share. that will be a really fun ending to this really fastic.

Sanjeeb Mukherjee: So I can share one story. Of course my experience is from B’s only. So as you know, as I said, drought reporting or reporting on lowinfall has been there since timeme memmorial. And I have also been part of few of them because of my long journey and I have sometimes reported on drought in different places. So it so happened that B’ONCE business standard, once sent me to do a reporting on drought condition in Rajasthan in one of those I think Junjunu seeker area. So there were a lot of low rainfall, there were no monsoons there in that year and something like that. So when I went to a village, it was near one of the roads which went to Churuuru, which is a very copper mining area as mineral area in Rajasthan. So it went to_uru and I just got down and we went to a village. So the village was suffering a lot of water problems, right? So there was no water which it hadn’t rained that year there. So farmers were complaining, cropab whatever, not know. So I just went and Interesting. I know it’s not interesting. It’s a reflection on the society that we live in. So I went to a village wellalth. So there were two pipelines there. So two pipelines in that same well and they used to have two wells. One well had dried up and the second well there are two pipelines. So I just asked them what is the two pipelines for? So I know it’s not an interesting thing. It’s a very sad reflection the, on the society that we live in. So I was told that one pipeline goes to the area where, where the were certain cast upper caste leaves and the second pipeline goes to a place where the lower caste leaves. So water had made them divide into two different casts. And I told them what is the problem? The water is the. I just asked them what is the same. Why don’t you guys distribute among themselves looking? No, because we are a certain caste. We get a priority in the one hour or two hour, two times the water used to come. So Two times we get a priority and because there are inferior caste they get a lesser amount of water. So I’m not saying it’s a very, it’s a very happy. This thing, this is a reflection of the society we stay. I put it across in my story as well. the pipeline in the crisis of water has divided the village into two distinct castes and there is a fight between the. Has brought forward this caste fracture in the society. So this is one, one small anecdotal. It’s not anecdotal. It the small realization I had that and that water crisis was because of your climate change. Your climate changes brought the caste fisser in the society out in the open. So people were electing to talk about caste. He was thinking no, no asani, it’s know nothing. But then I spoke to some people because this is that part of the village where the lower caste people live and they get a lesser proportion of the same because the one village, one well had dried up so the only one will remain. no really, fascinating how you know the impact of climate change but also general ongoing M My simple point. Of putting this, this point is that we talk about climate change in times in terms of very small binaries. In small. In terms of very m monetary impact. It investment come GDP come inflation. So just not inflation and investment. It actually is far more sociological problem because of your impact of climate change and rural areas and people who actually were feel that pain which is not much captured in reportage I suppose.

Sandeep Pai: Yeah, no fascinating story and I’m sure there’s hundreds and thousands of such stories because of this impact. I just wanted to thank you so much. This has been such a wide ranging conversation from your own personal journey to you know stories from the field to government policy. So I just wanted to thank you for your time.

Sanjeeb Mukherjee: Thanks. Thanks Sandeep. I also enjoyed my conversation with you. It was really fascinating to know the the in depth things that you guys do. Thank you. Thank you so much sir. you weaved in so manyloogy. Everything was fantastic. thank you, thank you. Thank you guys.

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