Winter retreat spelling factory and farm trouble

A shorter winter actually put Nitin Goel in the cold.

For 50 years, his family has made jackets, sweaters and sweatshirts in the clothing business of Ludhiana, the textile city of northwestern India. But as early this summer, the company is staring at the bathroom season and has to change gears.

Gail told the BBC that we had to start making T-shirts instead of sweaters because winter is getting shorter every year. Over the past five years, our sales have dropped by half, and this season has dropped by 10%. “The only exception is when the temperature drops significantly. ”

Throughout India, farms and factories are growing anxiously as cool weather quickly retreats, and planting patterns and business plans are getting higher and higher.

Last month was the hottest February in India in 125 years, according to data from the Indian Meteorological Department. In many parts of the country, the average weekly minimum temperature is also higher than normal.

Weather agencies warn that between March and May, most of the country may continue to exceed normal temperatures and heat waves.

For small business owners like Goel, this unstable weather means more than just slowing down sales. Over the past few decades, his entire business model has had to be changed after practice and improvement.

Goel’s company offers clothes to multi-brand stores across India. He said they no longer paid him on delivery, but adopted a “sell or return” model in which unsold goods will be returned to the company, transferring the risk to the manufacturer altogether.

This year, he also has to offer clients greater discounts and incentives.

“Although orders were confirmed, the big retailers still haven’t picked up the item,” Gore said, adding that some small businesses in his town had to close the stores.

Nearly 1,200 miles away from the town of Devgad on the western coast of India, the heat has damaged India’s beloved Alphonso mango orchard.

“This year’s output is only 30% of normal production,” said Vidyadhar Joshi, a farmer with 1,500 trees.

According to Joshi, sweet, fleshy and rich aromatic Alphonso is a precious export to the region, but production is lower in the Raigad, Sindhudurg and Ratnagiri regions.

Josh added: “We may lose this year.

According to him, many other farmers in the area have even sent workers from Nepal to work in the orchard because there is not enough.

Hot heat also threatens winter staples such as wheat, chickpeas and canola.

Although the country’s agriculture minister dismissed concerns about poorer returns and predicted India would earn a bumper wheat harvest this year, independent experts have lower hopes.

Abhishek Jain of the Energy, Environment and Water Commission (CEEW) think tank said the heat wave in 2022 was down 15-25%, and “a similar trend may be followed this year.”

India – the world’s second largest barley producer – must rely on expensive imports when such interference occurs. And its export ban announced in 2022 may last longer.

Economists are also concerned about the impact of rising temperatures on agricultural water availability.

According to CEEW, reservoir levels in northern India have dropped to 28% of capacity, down from 37% last year. This could affect fruit and vegetable production and the dairy industry, which has already dropped 15% in some parts of the country.

“These things have the potential to raise inflation and reverse the 4% target that the central bank has been talking about,” said Madan Sabnavis, chief economist at the Bank of Varoda.

Food prices in India have recently begun to soften after staying high for several months, resulting in a continued decline in pauses.

After hitting a three-seventh low last year, rural consumption has recently accelerated, and the GDP of Asia’s third-largest economy has also been supported. Any setbacks in the recovery of farm leaders could affect overall growth in a case where urban households are declining and private investment has not been obtained.

Think tanks such as CEEW said a range of urgent measures need to be considered to mitigate the impact of recurrent fever waves, including better weather forecasting infrastructure, agricultural insurance and the evolving planting calendar using climate models to reduce risks and improve yields.

As a predominantly agricultural country, India is particularly vulnerable to climate change.

CEEW estimates that three out of every four Indian regions are “extreme event hotspots”, while 40% of regions show what are called “exchange trends” – meaning that areas traditionally prone to flooding are witnessing more frequent and intense droughts and vice versa.

According to an estimate, by 2030, the country will lose about 5.8% of its working hours per day due to heat stress. Advocates climate transparency fixes India’s potential revenue losses in the service, manufacturing, agriculture and construction sectors in 2021 with extreme calorie reductions, accounting for $159 million or 5.4% of its GDP.

Without emergency action, India braved the heat waves to threaten the future of life and economic stability.

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