Climate Change and Agrarian Risk

Research record

Chapter 129 examines climate change as agrarian risk. The phrase matters. Farms do not experience a global mean-temperature curve directly; they experience heat during flowering, a delayed transplanting window, a dry canal, a waterlogged field, a failed fodder crop, a damaged road, a higher pump bill or a price shock after regional crop loss. Climate change alters the probability and intensity of some hazards, but economic loss appears through exposure and vulnerability created by landholding, irrigation, tenancy, credit, labour, seed systems, markets and public institutions. A social-economic history must therefore connect meteorology to the farm household rather than treating weather statistics as self-explanatory. The recent evidence is unusually instructive. The India Meteorological Department reported that 2025 was India's eighth warmest year since 1901, with annual mean land-surface air temperature 0.28°C above the 1991–2020 average and a long-run warming trend across 1901–2025. India as a whole received 110 per cent of its long-period annual rainfall, yet East and Northeast India received only 80 per cent of its long-period southwest-monsoon rainfall, and IMD's 2025 Standardized Precipitation Index showed extremely or severely dry conditions in parts of Bihar. This is exactly why national rainfall totals cannot stand in for agrarian water conditions in Mithila, Vajji or Anga. Across the border, Madhesh Province in Nepal experienced a severe 2025 drought. ICIMOD's rapid analysis estimated rainfall deficits of roughly 30–50 per cent, widespread groundwater stress and delayed rice transplantation—about 52 per cent completed compared with about 92 per cent at the same time a year earlier—together with a potential rice shortfall. ADB subsequently identified the delayed Madhesh monsoon, along with October flood damage elsewhere, as a factor reducing paddy output and pressuring food prices. These episodes do not by themselves prove that every component was caused by anthropogenic climate change. They demonstrate the kind of compound agrarian risk that a warming climate, variable monsoon, water dependence and unequal adaptive capacity make economically consequential.

Section index

1. 129.1 Climate change as agrarian risk, not a weather slogan
2. 129.2 Hazard × exposure × vulnerability
3. 129.3 Attribution: what can and cannot be claimed
4. 129.4 A warming baseline over the Indo-Gangetic and Terai plains
5. 129.5 Monsoon dependence and intra-seasonal variability
6. 129.6 A wet region can still experience agricultural drought
7. 129.7 2025 in India: above-normal national rain, regional dryness
8. 129.8 2025 Madhesh drought as a crop-calendar shock
9. 129.9 Rice transplantation and the narrowing planting window
10. 129.10 Terminal heat and wheat
11. 129.11 Maize, pulses and crop-specific stress pathways
12. 129.12 Flood, waterlogging and submergence as yield risk
13. 129.13 Groundwater: adaptation buffer and depletion risk
14. 129.14 Irrigation reliability, energy and unequal access
15. 129.15 Soil moisture, soil health and climate sensitivity
16. 129.16 Pests, diseases and ecological uncertainty
17. 129.17 Livestock heat, fodder and water stress
18. 129.18 Fisheries, ponds and aquaculture risk
19. 129.19 Horticulture and high-value crops
20. 129.20 Small holdings and limited shock-absorption capacity
21. 129.21 Tenancy, landlessness and who carries crop loss
22. 129.22 Gendered labour, water and care burdens
23. 129.23 Migration and remittances as risk-sharing—and fragility
24. 129.24 Prices, food security and household nutrition
25. 129.25 Weather advisories and the last mile
26. 129.26 Stress-tolerant seed and crop-calendar adaptation
27. 129.27 Diversification, integrated farming and water-smart systems
28. 129.28 Insurance, credit and basis risk
29. 129.29 What climate-resilient agriculture should mean here
30. 129.30 From agrarian climate risk to flood resilience

Cite this record

Gajendra Thakur. “Climate Change and Agrarian Risk.” Videha Digital Research Archive: Mithila–Vajji–Anga. Videha — https://www.videha.co.in/ · ISSN 2229-547X · GitHub mirror: https://videha-ejournal.github.io/videha/ · Digital Research Archives on GitHub: https://github.com/videha-ejournal. https://videha-ejournal.github.io/mithila-vajji-anga/records/history/social-129/