Move on climate panel for region

by PULLOCK DUTTA


Jorhat, July 7: A joint panel of the states of the Northeast to study the impact of climate change on agriculture in the region is in the offing with Dispur seeking cooperation from the seven northeastern states, including Sikkim.

Sources in the agriculture department said it was the need of the hour to have such a panel of experts from the Northeast since the climate of one state in the region is related to that of the other and the economy is agrarian in nature. The idea to form such a panel was mooted by the Assam Agricultural University to Dispur a few months back.

Sources said Dispur was in touch with the neighbouring states to suggest names of experts who could be included in the panel. The vice-chancellor of the university, K.M. Bujarbaruah, said as global warming and its subsequent effect on the climate is definitely having an impact on the agricultural sector of the region, it was necessary that the states get together and have a proper scientific study in this regard.

“Although such studies are being carried out at the national level, we need a special panel to study the impact of the climate change on the region’s agriculture. It is time that all the states got together now since no systematic study has been done in this regard using long-term weather data,” the AAU vice-chancellor said.

According to the data prepared by the National Action Plan on Climate Change, a trend of decreasing rainfall in the Northeast has been noticed. The region lost more than 200mm of annual average rainfall in the last 100 years. The minimum temperature on an average has risen at many places from 1 degree Celsius to 1.5 degrees Celsius during the same period.

“Warming trends, coupled with other disturbed weather parameters, will affect the cropping patterns in different areas of the region and necessitate growers to think of adaptive strategies. It may so happen that some crops may become unsuitable for some areas and give way to other crops,” another AAU scientist said.

The Dispur move to constitute a panel to study the impact of climate change on the region comes in the wake of chief minister Tarun Gogoi giving special emphasis to improve the agricultural sector.

The chief minister has recently held a meeting with senior scientists of AAU, including the vice-chancellor, and the director of North East Institute of Science and Technology in Jorhat recently.

Gogoi said in Guwahati yesterday that there would be better cooperation between the irrigation and the agriculture departments from now on to give a boost to the agriculture sector.

Agriculture minister Nilamoni Sen Deka has announced recently that Assam would soon have a separate policy for the agricultural sector to achieve self-sufficiency.