India’s Food Security Is Being Choked by Climate Change

A warming planet is destabilizing the cycles of rain and sun that are keeping the country fed. 

The world’s most populous nation is more poorly endowed with farmland, per capita, than Greece or Algeria. That’s going to make life harder as a warming planet destabilizes the cycles of rain and sun that have kept it fed for millennia.

India last week suspended exports of non-basmati varieties of rice after heavy monsoon rainfall damaged newly planted crops due to be harvested in winter. With rice retail prices up 3% in the past month and 11.5% over the past year, the government hopes to quell food inflation by reserving more grain for the domestic market.