Drought has devastated crops around the world this year, including corn and soybeans in the United States, wheat in Russia and Australia and soybeans in Brazil and Argentina. This has contributed to a 6 percent rise in global food pricesfrom June to July, according to United Nations data.
India is experiencing its fourth drought in a dozen years, raising concerns about the reliability of the country’s primary source of fresh water, the monsoon rains that typically fall from June to October.
Some scientists warn that such calamities are part of a trend that is likely to intensify in the coming decades because of climate changes caused by the human release of greenhouse gases.
Scientists say that in addition to increasing temperatures, climate change appears to be making India and its neighbors Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh more vulnerable to erratic monsoons.
India is more vulnerable to disruption from drought than countries like the United States. While agriculture accounts for just 15 percent of India’s economy, half of its 1.2 billion people work on farms, and many of its poorest citizens already cannot afford enough food after price increases of 10 percent or more in the last couple of years.
Weak monsoon rains were also an underlying cause of the blackouts that cut power to half of the country in July. The paucity of water lowered the supply of power from dams that account for a fifth of electric capacity, even as consumers cranked up fans and air-conditioners and farmers ran electric pumps to draw water from wells.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/04/business/global/drought-in-india-devastates-crops-and-farmers.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
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