The future of rice: Is climate change reshaping India’s monsoon? 

This year marked an important milestone for India’s agricultural sector: For the first time, India has surpassed China as the world’s largest producer of rice. This is the result of dramatic improvement in yields over the last decades and of the intensification of rice farming in new regions. Between 1970 and 2025, annual rice production in India has more than doubled, from 63 Mn Tonnes to over 150 Mn Tonnes. 

Sources: Government of India - Digital Sansad, USDA

It is key to remember that agriculture in South Asia is intimately linked to the seasonal monsoon phenomenon. The monsoon is provoked by a shift in wind direction, itself driven by changes in land-sea temperature contrasts. 

For more than a billion people across India, the monsoon is not just a season, it is a lifeline. Rains refill reservoirs, revive soils, and sustain the world’s largest rice-growing regions: The southwest monsoon between June and September provides about 80% of all of India’s annual precipitation. 

For generations, farmers have relied on its rhythm: the slow build-up of humidity, the darkening skies, and the dependable arrival of rain that signals the start of planting.

But in recent years, this rhythm has been disturbed: Climate change is reshaping the monsoon in ways that are already impacting India’s rice farmers and, by extension, the food security of the world’s most populated country since 80% of the rice India grows is consumed within its borders.

A Monsoon Losing Its Predictability?

Traditionally, the Indian summer monsoon arrives in early June, sweeping steadily from Kerala up toward the Gangetic plains and the Himalayas. Its onset, duration, and withdrawal follow a pattern that farmers have learned to plan around: when to sow seeds, when to transplant rice seedlings, when to apply fertilizer, when to expect floods or droughts. That once-stable pattern is now breaking down because of the higher moisture in the warmed atmosphere.

Scientists have observed three major shifts:

Erratic onset: The monsoon is arriving later and less predictably in many regions. In some years, it stalls over the Arabian Sea for weeks; in others, it rushes inland earlier than before. This year, rains started a full 8 days ahead of schedule, the earliest in the last 16 years. This uncertainty disrupts sowing schedules and reduces the growing window for rice.

Intense rainfall bursts instead of steady rains: Climate change is supercharging the atmosphere, allowing it to hold more moisture. Instead of long, gentle rains, India now sees short, extreme downpours. These cloudbursts can cause flash floods, destroy young rice plants, and erode soil fertility.

Sources: Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, The Economist

Long dry spells within the monsoon season: Even as total rainfall over a season may appear “normal,” it is increasingly concentrated in fewer days. The gaps between rains are getting longer, creating dry spells that stress crops at critical growth stages.

Together, these changes mean that the monsoon is becoming more intense, sometimes extreme and harder to predict, the exact opposite of what farmers need.

Is rice especially vulnerable to a shifting monsoon?

Rice is deeply tied to the monsoon because it is a water-intensive crop. Traditional paddy systems rely on fields that are continuously flooded. For centuries, farmers could assume that monsoon rainfall would provide most of that water.

But under climate stress, rice faces new challenges:

Water scarcity at the wrong time: A delayed monsoon means fields stay dry when they should be flooded for transplanting seedlings. If farmers transplant late, the entire crop shifts into cooler months, increasing the risk of pests, disease, and yield loss.

Flooding at the wrong time: Extreme rainfall events can drown rice plants, especially in the early stages. Even short-term submergence limits oxygen to the roots and can wipe out entire plots.

Heat stress: Higher temperatures — especially nighttime temperatures — suppress rice growth and reduce yields. Studies show that every 1°C rise in minimum nighttime temperature can cut rice production by up to 10%.

Overall, climate change could mean that irrigated rice yields could fall by 7 per cent by 2050 and 10 per cent by 2080 according to research by the National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA).

Adaptation pathways

Despite the challenges, there is reason for optimism. Farmers, scientists, and agricultural innovators across India and Southeast Asia are developing new systems that can make rice cultivation more resilient. Alongside improved, drought-resistant rice varieties and AI-based weather forecasting methods, Climate-smart farming practices can help farmers conserve water and preserve resources under a changing climate. Alternate Wetting and Drying is emerging as one low-cost intervention that can help save 40% of water in each growing season. AWD has the added benefit of releasing 50% less methane, a powerful warming gas that accelerates climate change and the disruption of monsoon cycles. The UN's latest Global Methane Status Report points to rising emissions from rice farming in India (+8% in the next five years), a worrying trend in a global effort to contain methane emissions.

With smart policy, climate-resilient technologies, and farmer-driven innovation, India can guide rice farming through this transformation. The monsoon may be changing, but with the right actions, its role as a source of nourishment, culture, and stability can endure.

*Header image: Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology