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Top1. Introduction
Climate change is no longer considered a global issue alone, but a complex phenomenon having intangible consequences on people’s daily lives at the local level. Climatic Change resulted from global warming, is an actuality of worldwide tolerance, impacting in several ways such as human lives, commercial operations and the ecosystem itself (Stern Review, 2006). The Himalayan mountain belt recognized as the key hotspots of climate change, as it has been recorded an increase in maximum temperature of about 0.9°C (Dash et al., 2007), while the global average warming is around 0.85°C throughout the century (IPCC 2013). The Western Himalayan region is facing enormous pressure from social and economic drivers along with the ongoing climate change. Although the drivers of change, if acting independently, may cause minor changes, their cumulative impacts will have drastic socio-ecological consequences. Agriculture is management; science and art being applied throughout the world for a long time. Significant enhancement in the production has been observed due to several agricultural efforts, but the problems about food security, soil health, and marketability have resulted in the long-term effect.
Climate variations could have a serious impact on the economic and livelihood sectors. Numerous studies have recorded a high increased temperature in the areas, especially in the hilly regions, and highlighted the ecological calamities such as severe weather events (Kulkarni et al, 2007). The sectors which are closely linked to climates, such as food, health, water, agriculture, forestry, and tourism will be highly impacted by the extreme catastrophes resulting from climate changes (Handmer et. al., 2012). High losses in the yield of numerous agricultural items have been observed due to the changing climatic conditions and bad weather events like drought, heavy floods, heatwaves, etc. The negative impacts are predicted to increase in coming future, based on the level of global warming and its adoption capacity by the agriculture sector (WWF, 2015).
The supply chain of the agriculture sector has already started facing the negative consequences of such drastic conditions. As an example, two-third of the nation declared themselves as disaster regions after the U.S. drought that took place in 2012, which also substantially decreased the yields for agriculture commodities in the Midwest and Great Plains. This incident resulted in USD 14.5 billion of compensation, which paid beneath the federal crop insurance program (Spend Matters Brand Studio, 2019). With the rise in the average temperature globally, the poor people and those who are reliance upon natural resources for their livelihood and survival, and also those living in the geographically remote regions having more chances to face high variations in local climatic conditions, which would be very difficult for them to cope up.
This study, therefore, is an attempt to understand the issues & challenges and probable solutions for creating a climate-resilient and sustainable agriculture supply chain in Uttarakhand (A Himalayan State of India).
The rest of this article is structured as follows: First an introduction about the Uttarakhand state and the impact of climate change in Uttarakhand is presented. Second, a review of relevant literature on climate change and sustainable agriculture is presented. Third, the research methodology is presented. Fourth, agriculture supply chain in Uttarakhand, and climate change issues and its impact in Uttarakhand’s agriculture is discussed in detail. Then, remarkable sustainable supply chain practices in various flows of supply chain in agriculture and allied sector are discussed, and Finally, a conclusion and opportunities for future research are presented.