Though the dependence of agriculture on the summer monsoon has reduced somewhat lately
due to increased irrigation and better drought management, Figure 1 shows clearly how the
two have marched in lockstep. This is unsurprising since, out of the total net sown area of
141.0 million hectares (Mha) in India, rainfed area accounts for 85.0 Mha spread over 177
districts. This constitutes approximately 60 percent of the total farming area in the country.
Rainfed agriculture contributes 44% of the total food grain production of the country and
produces 75% of pulses and more than 90% of sorghum, millet and groundnut from arid and
semiarid regions. Even after half a century of lopsided policies that have focused on pockets
of the country and specific crops, rainfed regions provide livelihood to nearly 50% of the
total rural workforce and sustain 60% of cattle population of the country (MNI et al., 2009).
Keeping in view the peculiarities of India’s climate and of the summer monsoon in particular,
in a recent exercise a regional climate model (RCM) with 50 km resolution, namely, PRECIS
was deployed to dynamically downscale global model simulations and superimpose regional
details from India (GoI 2010). This exercise coupled with long instrumental records allows
us to capture past trends and also make projections for key climate variables such as
temperature and rainfall within the country at a disaggregated level.