How farmers are negotiating climate chaos

mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com · Feb 15, 2026 · Collected from GDELT

Full Article

Mumbai opened 2026 with unseasonal rain, and Maharashtra’s grape export season saw a 28% drop in registered vineyards. As weather becomes unpredictable, farmers are recalculating crops, costs and the odds of survivalGrowing up in Karve, a village of about 3,000 in Maharashtra’s Sangli district, Santosh Jadhav learnt early that farming carried a reputation for hardship. His parents nudged him towards the family’s gold and silver refining business in Prayagraj. In 2016, at 31, he returned home and chose farming anyway. The seasons he returned to were no longer predictable.“For example, the season for harvesting grapes has begun but we’re seeing unseasonal rains in various parts of India that spoil the crop,” he says. “The traders take undue advantage of these uncertainties and bully farmers into selling their produce for much cheaper.”This year, that volatility appeared in the data. Maharashtra’s grape export season opened with a 28 per cent fall in registered vineyards after prolonged unseasonal rain hit districts such as Nashik and Sangli as export shipments were being finalised. Registrations dropped from 42,000 farmers cultivating 26,879 hectares last season to 30,747 farmers covering 19,400 hectares this year.When the calendar failsThe disruption doesn’t stop at grapes. Delayed monsoon withdrawal has affected rabi sowing in parts of the state. Intense rainfall has damaged onion and pomegranate crops. Heat episodes have stressed wheat during grain filling. Even in years when total rainfall appears near normal, longer dry spells followed by heavy bursts have unsettled transplanting and harvest schedules across rain-fed districts.Dr Roxy Mathew Koll, climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune, says the pattern reflects structural change. Weather systems such as western disturbances are not new, but rising temperatures increase atmospheric moisture and heat stress, amplifying their impact. Research shows a threefold rise in extreme rainfall events over parts of central India even as overall monsoon totals decline. A season that appears average on paper now arrives in disruptive bursts.“In Maharashtra, the largely rain-fed interiors, especially Marathwada and Vidarbha, are highly exposed, where a delayed monsoon, long dry spells or extreme heat can quickly turn into crop and income stress,” Koll says. “The Konkan coast faces heavy rain and flooding that disrupt fisheries and transport, while the Western Ghats are prone to landslides and flash floods, as seen in Chiplun. Small and marginal farmers are hit hardest because they have limited irrigation, storage and financial buffers.”For those without buffers, each shock carries two costs: one in the field through reduced yield or quality, and another at sale, when compressed harvest windows and oversupply depress prices.Diversity as defenceIn Palghar, Gaytri Bhatia, who recently was part of Edible futures, a panel curated by Avid Learning on how climate change is reshaping food systems, has tracked this instability over two decades at Vrindavan Farm. She recalls relentless rainfall in 2019 and 2020, a 2022 monsoon that extended into winter and erased the October heat needed for sowing, and a 40°C summer in 2025 that scorched mango canopies. In 2025, rain stretched from late May to early November. “We don’t need to plant rice next year,” she recalls paddy farmers joking, as harvest grain re-seeded itself in saturated soil.“For me, preparedness to climate variances has always meant diversity,” she says. Multi-layered planting, mulching and reliance on native species improve moisture retention and spread risk. “Resilience comes from diversity.” During the intense 2020 monsoon, papaya trees failed while turmeric, ginger and banana survived. In the prolonged 2025 monsoon, she observed native rice Ajara Ghansal lodge and then re-root at its nodes, lifting grain above soaked soil. Hybrid varieties did not recover as well.Risk without buffersIn Nagda, Madhya Pradesh, 23-year-old Vijay Joshiya describes the same volatility in practical terms. “In the last three years, we’ve been struggling, especially with the double blow of water scarcity on one side and unseasonal rainfall on the other,” he says. “Our onion crop was damaged by unseasonal rain while the searing heat has made it difficult to sustain wheat. We are forced to irrigate our fields every five days.”Untimely rains have repeatedly affected onion crops in Maharashtra, contributing to sharp swings in supply and prices. Advice travels through informal networks. “Some farmers experiment with a new seed or fertiliser and share it. We have our own local WhatsApp group. That seed goes viral. It is a trial-and-error process and, often, the mistakes are very expensive,” he says.Storage remains a structural weakness. Perishable crops such as onion and garlic cannot wait for prices to recover. Farmers without warehouses must sell quickly, often below input cost. Jadhav contrasts his own decision to plant sugarcane as a backup crop, since it is purchased at a fixed government price, with wheat fields he saw in Madhya Pradesh where farmers avoided experimentation for fear of losing seed capital. “If their alternative fails, they won’t have the seed capital for the next sowing season,” he says.The stress is not confined to crops. Climate volatility is reshaping livestock economies as well, particularly dairy — a crucial supplementary income for marginal farmers. As per a January 2026 report by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, climate change is already reducing milk output and affecting dairy livelihoods in multiple ways. Rising temperatures and erratic rainfall reduce fodder availability and quality, while livestock face nutritional stress that lowers milk yield, fertility and immunity. Increased competition for climate-impacted natural resources has heightened disease incidence and heat stress.Other research indicates that high temperatures and humidity directly reduce milk yield and composition, including fat and protein content. A 1°C rise in temperature is expected to reduce daily milk yields by over 0.5 litres per animal. Projections suggest a decline of up to 10 per cent in yields in the coming decades, with potential losses exceeding 15 million tonnes by 2050.In Birakhedi village in Ujjain, 27-year-old dairy farmer Ram Parmar has turned to digital platforms to share information about climate-resilient fodder crops, adaptive feeding strategies and heat-tolerant cattle breeds. He also advocates practical interventions such as fans and sprinklers in cattle sheds to reduce heat stress. For farmers like him, adaptation now means recalibrating not just sowing cycles but livestock management itself.Profit versus resilienceGovernment schemes soften, but do not eliminate, the risk. Subsidised solar pumps, lower irrigation costs and discounted electricity reduce expenses. Crop insurance under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana and the Rs 6,000 annual PM-Kisan payment offer limited relief after loss.Lower costs do not guarantee stable income. When onion prices rise in cities, imports are sometimes used to cool inflation, which can depress domestic returns. Farmers are encouraged to grow millets because they tolerate erratic weather, yet returns are lower. “When I plant sugarcane, I make about Rs 2 lakh per acre. If I replace it with millets, I earn Rs 30,000 to Rs 40,000,” Jadhav says. The trade-off is stark. Crops that are more climate-resilient often generate lower income. Crops that pay more demand more water and carry higher risk.A future of compound shocksKoll warns that over the next two decades Maharashtra can expect more heat stress, more high-intensity rainfall days and rising coastal flood risk, with compound events such as heavy rain coinciding with high tide or heatwaves overlapping with drought posing particular threats. He calls for stronger local weather monitoring, flexible sowing plans, water harvesting, crop diversification and insurance systems that function in practice. For Jadhav and others, the response is not nostalgia or blind faith in technology. It is adaptation with intent. “If we decide to treat farming like a business, to ask the right questions about how it can become more profitable, and address key knowledge gaps, farming may just become more sustainable as a profession,” he says.