Assam farmers are adapting to the new climate reality with flood-tolerant crops and floating gardens

The 2022 Assam floods, following record-breaking rains, were the worst that the state has seen in the last decade. Soon-after, some districts faced a drought-like situation forcing farmers to work through disruptions in their cultivation schedule. A year on, with Assam receiving excess rain in March, in the current pre-monsoon season, farmers recount how the flood and drought cycle kept them on their toes.

In 2022, a pre-monsoon spell from March to May, brought 40% excess rainfall causing displacement of people, crop loss, land erosion, landslides and deluge, collapse of dykes and bridges. Cultivators await the pre-monsoons every year to prepare the seedbed where paddy seedlings grow, to be transported later to the fields. In 2022, extreme pre-monsoon rains delayed the seedbed preparation.

By the time seedlings were ready for cultivation in the fields, the early monsoon in June that year, within a matter of fifteen days, came in such a huge quantum that the districts of Dhemaji, Lakhimpur, Chirang, Kamrup Rural, Bongaigaon, Baksa, Barpeta, Udalguri, Goalpara, Kokrajhar, Cachar and Karimganj received an excess ranging from 69% to 171%, leading to floods.

Rural and urban areas were affected while the districts like Dima Hasao, East and West Karbi Anglong, Nagaon, Hojai were badly affected. Across the state, floods destroyed whole croplands, inundated...

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