A sweltering heat wave decimated Pritam Singh’s wheat crop in 2022.
That year, temperatures reached a record-breaking 127 degrees Fahrenheit in Haryana, India, where Singh operates a 35-acre farm. The scorching heat shriveled the wheat and forced it to mature faster, he recalled, leading to just half of his usual harvest. Across India, the heat wave caused wheat production to plummet by 3 million metric tons, and the states of Punjab and Haryana reported stunted grain yields as well. This led the government to halt wheat exports to manage domestic food security.
But two years later, even though temperatures were the highest they’d been in more than a decade, Singh was much more optimistic when he planted his seeds. That’s because the Mexico-based International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre, known by its Spanish initials CIMMYT, had worked with local partner organizations to distribute cost-free buckets of climate-resilient seeds to Singh and millions of farmers like him across the country. The hardier seeds, currently sown across 40 million hectares, ha... Read more
