Impact of climate change on the yield of tropical root and tuber crops vs. rice and potato in India

The current study focused on the impact of climate change on tropical root and tuber crops of India over some of the major growing areas using the crop model, WOFOST. As part of this study, the impact of climate change on the yield of rice and potato is also carried out using the same crop model to understand the advantages of root and tuber crops over the yield variations of rice and potato. The LARS weather generator is used to derive future climate for 2030, 2050, and 2070 for the two representative concentration pathways (RCPs)-4.5 and 8.5. The future climate projections in the study locations indicate an increment in minimum and maximum temperatures up to a value of 3.4 and 3.8 ºC respectively. The rainfall also indicates a drastic fluctuation from -721 to 448 mm in the future. The results reveal that the predicted crop yield varies from one location to another depending on the future climate. Cassava (-13 to 12%, -17 to 8%), sweet potato (-32 to 14%, -38 to 13%), greater yam (-11 to 8, -14 to 6), elephant foot yam (-10 to 6, -12 to 4), and taro (-16 to 19, -28 to 18) can be considered as future crops based on their predicted yield variations and economics compared to that of rice (-26 to 15%, -50 to 18%) and potato (-37 to 7%, -59 to 8.5%) for both the RCPs. Among other crops, sweet potato has the same crop duration as rice and potato and can be recommended to increase food access. These crops can be recommended for enhancing the availability of food based on their superiority in dry matter production.