Local growers suffer catastrophic losses as beloved summer staple vanishes: 'One day you won't have any ... left'

Unpredictable rainfall patterns in India severely damaged the yield of a popular crop, leaving farmers devastated.

What's happening?

As The New Indian Express explained, mango farmers in Karnataka are facing significant financial losses after bad weather destroyed the majority of their crops.

"This year, the mango buds were damaged due to the harsh winter heat in January and February. And when it started getting better, the sudden rain damaged the crops further," Ajith Raj, a mango farmer from Gauribidanur, told the publication.

While the unpredictability of mango yields is nothing new to these farmers, they are typically met with a wave of backlash for sour or low-quality fruits. This backlash can affect financial stability, putting the livelihood of these farmers at risk.

While some farmers are able to absorb these losses by pivoting to crops like tomatoes and beans, small-scale farmers aren't able to replace their mango crops because "their economic instability refrains them from shifting to a new crop, which includes a lot of money investment in terms of planting new saplings, wages for workers etc.," wrote The New Indian Express.

Why is this important?

Rainfall, particularly when excessive, can pose significant challenges for farmers because flooded fields prevent crops from getting the light and oxygen they need to thrive. Instances of extreme weather can lead to total crop failure, causing farmers to lose income and resources needed to cultivate their products.

In addition to unpredictable rainfall, extreme heat is also a major threat to crop production. For example, abnormally high temperatures have threatened tomato and onion farming regions in Nigeria, as the country's agriculture industries combined for an average loss of 40%.

Despite the volatility of the weather, farmers are often left with no choice but to forge ahead in hopes of making a living.

"Mango farming is like gambling," Yeshwanth, a mango farmer from Kolar, told The New Indian Express. "You don't know what will happen, sometimes it might be going well, but suddenly you would be at a loss. But we are farmers, it is our profession, we cannot abandon it due to loss."

What's being done about this?

According to The New Indian Express, mango farmers have been taken advantage of by "mango mandis," referring to mandiwalas who buy the crop in bulk at a cheaper price before reselling it at higher costs. Because of this, farmers have resorted to relying on one specific type of mango that can still yield a profit.

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"Due to these Mango Mandis, most of the farmers are shifting to totapuri mangos from which a lot of juice can be extracted. The farmers directly get in touch with the juice factories and end up getting a higher profit. If the situations remains the same, one day you won't have any mango varieties left apart from Totapuri," Yeshwanth said.

Yeshwanth also called for government intervention to establish a minimum price for mangos that the "mango mandis" must pay farmers and to increase the insurance amount to help farmers recover from losses.

In other areas of the world, scientists are developing climate-resilient crops that can withstand extreme temperatures amid ongoing changes in the climate. It's important to explore critical climate issues if you want to make a difference and help protect the global food supply, as well as support farming communities as they face increasingly unpredictable weather patterns.

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