Global Warming Reduces Grain Output in Inflation-Ridden India

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http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-04-19/global-warming-reduces-grain-output-in-inflation-ridden-india.html

Global Warming Reduces Grain Output in Inflation-Ridden India

April 19, 2010, 3:31 AM EDT

By Dinakar Sethuraman

April 19 (Bloomberg) -- Rising temperatures and inadequate rainfall in India is stagnating grain output, threatening food security in the world’s second-most populous country, according to a weather scientist.

In the past decade, average temperatures have increased by 0.25 degree Celsius when the monsoon crops are sown in June, and by 0.6 degree Celsius when winter crops are planted in October, said Krishna Kumar, a senior scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, a state-owned researcher.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is counting on a bigger crops to tame inflation from a 17-month high and to meet an election promise of ensuring food security for the poor by providing rice and wheat at below market prices. India’s economy slowed in the quarter ended December after a drought last year ravaged crops and pushed global sugar prices to a 29-year high.

“Warmer nights affect rice output while day temperatures hurt wheat production,” Kumar said in an interview on April 16 in the western city of Pune. “Night temperatures are increasing more rapidly than day temperatures since the late 1980s” due to rising human greenhouse-gas emissions, he said.

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