Kashmir\u2019s farmers suffer floods and drought as glaciers melt
\nIn Kashmir, nearly 70 percent population directly or indirectly makes income through farming
\nNews Agency
\nGORIPORA
\nWhen spring flooding in Kashmir\u2019s Himalayan mountains drowned the mustard crops on Ghulam Hassan\u2019s farm, he knew at least he would have his summer rice harvest to provide food for his family and fodder for his cattle.
\nBut when summer came, the glacier-fed stream he uses to irrigate his crops filled to only a fraction of its usual level. His rice plants died of thirst and the corn and beans he tried to plant instead also perished.
\n\u201cAll this land you see around you was an upsetting sight in summer \u2013 farmland is of no worth if water is not available,\u201d Hassan said, as he tied together a bale of grass gathered from around his farm in the village of Goripora, in the south of Indian-administered Kashmir.
\nNow the farmer is left with the painful choice between feeding his family or his animals.
\n\u201cSee my fate?\u201d he asked. \u201cI either have to sell off my cow and two bulls (to buy rice) or buy the fodder for them for the winter.\u201d
\nScientists have long warned that warming temperatures linked to climate change are eating into glaciers and ice sheets around the world, driving rising sea levels, floods and droughts.
\nIn Kashmir, where nearly 70 percent of the population directly or indirectly makes an income through farming, mountain communities rely on a pattern of seasonal snowmelt to irrigate their crops, making them especially vulnerable when a heating climate brings unexpected rainfall instead of snow and causes glaciers to melt too fast and too early.
\nA study published in February in the journal Nature Geoscience said the world\u2019s glaciers now contain far less ice than previously thought, having lost roughly 5.4 trillion tons of ice between 2000 and 2019.
\nFarhat Shaheen, an agricultural economist at Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology (SKUAST), said even marginal shifts in the pattern of snowmelt in the mountains will take a heavy toll as Kashmir\u2019s farmers scramble to adapt.
\n\u201cThis will affect all sectors of the economy in general and farming in particular,\u201d he said.
\nWhile there are no reliable figures on how much Kashmir\u2019s agricultural industry has lost to extreme climate events, Shaheen said he\u2019s spoken to farmers in the region\u2019s south who have lost up to 70 percent of their crops in a single season due to dry spells and floods.
\nDisappearing glaciers
\nShakil Ahmad Romshoo, a glacier expert who heads the University of Kashmir\u2019s department of earth sciences, has been monitoring seven glaciers in the regions of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh for the past six years.
\nHe said studies by his team show that this year the glaciers have shrunk by an average 5 meters (16 feet) compared to the average annual shrinkage of 1 meter per year since he started collecting data.
\nBehind the accelerated melting are the record heatwaves much of the world has experienced over the past year, Romshoo said.
\nBut even in years without exceptional heat spikes, he said, the Himalayas are getting hotter earlier in the spring, melting glaciers faster and sooner than usual and causing sudden intense flooding, which is exacerbated by increased rainfall.
\nThen, by the summer, when farmers depend on melting snow and ice to fill the area\u2019s streams and irrigate their crops, there is not enough glacier melt available in the mountains, resulting in dry conditions.
\nIf temperatures keep rising and \u201cextraordinary glacier melting\u201d becomes the norm, that could threaten food, energy and water security in the entire region, Romshoo warned in an interview.
\nKashmir\u2019s agriculture director, Choudhary Mohammad Iqbal, said his department is trying to help farmers adapt by offering up-to-date information about climate swings and seeks to provide immediate help when droughts or floods wipe out crops.
\nFor example, he said, during a dry spell earlier this year, farmers in south Kashmir\u2019s Dooru area were given five wells to help irrigate 1,000 kanals (125 acres) of rice crops, while farmers in other areas were warned ahead of time to swap from growing rice to pulses, which require less water.
\nThe regional government is also in the process of implementing a national crop insurance scheme that compensates farmers for losses caused by extreme weather events, Iqbal said.
\nShaheen at SKUAST said the government should first focus on collecting better data on what kind of help Kashmir\u2019s farmers need, then use those numbers to implement adaption strategies, such as creating water harvesting infrastructure, building up flood resistance and strengthening early warning systems.
\nDrowned roads and landslides
\nIn Chendargund, a tiny village in the foothills of the Pir Panjal mountain range, when villagers talk about the stream that engulfs their farms every two or three years, they say it has \u201cbroken our back.\u201d
\nSaleema Begam, 55, described how, during the latest floods, surging waters cut off her home from the nearest road.
\nWhen her husband fell ill, her son had to carry his father on his back up to the main road, where they used a relative\u2019s car to take him to the hospital. He made a full recovery.
\nA few months later, the stream has reduced to a trickle and is so full of silt that the family can no longer use it for drinking or cooking.
\n\u201cWe have no option but to use this dirty water only for washing dishes,\u201d Begam said as she sat on the veranda of her house.
\nWhile their home is far enough from the stream to escape the floodwaters, she said her family worries that the hotter, wetter springs will one day trigger a landslide that could obliterate their house and crops, leaving them with nothing.
\nBegam gestured to cracks in the walls that she says are caused by the earth shifting underneath the house. Every time there are heavy rains, her family worries their home could collapse on top of them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kashmir\u2019s farmers suffer floods and drought as glaciers melt In Kashmir, nearly 70 percent population directly or indirectly makes income through farming News Agency GORIPORA When spring flooding in Kashmir\u2019s Himalayan mountains drowned the mustard crops on Ghulam Hassan\u2019s farm, he knew at least he would have his summer rice harvest to provide food for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294058,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-294047","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n