Climate change in India: how to protect farmers?

The effects of climate change on Indian agriculture under different alternative climate scenarios are empirically studied. This article uses the Ricardian approach that links net revenues per acre as a function of climate, farm and households’characteristics. We estimate the net revenues per acre function using cross-sectional data and quantile regression. Empirical results show that farms with higher net revenues per acre look to be more affected by climate variables in magnitude. Farms with lower net revenues per acre tend to benefit more from crops mixing than farms with high income per acre. In a second step, we implement two climate scenarios which differ according to the assumptions on changes on average temperature and total rainfall. Farms with low net revenues per acre experience losses less important in magnitude but larger in percent change than farms with high net revenues per acre. At the district level, results show more heterogeneity. Under both scenarios, districts in the North of India tend to experience a decrease in net revenues per acre while an opposed effect is found for districts in the South of the country.