Crop damage, decrease in yield among the many hidden effects of air pollution on Indian agriculture

Since the introduction of the National Air Quality Index in 2014, New Delhi witnessed the highest number of days in the severe and near-severe category in November 2023. The Air Quality Index was 390 and above for 17 days – a figure on the higher end of the index that warns of potentially significant health complications with prolonged exposure. Beyond the national capital, India was the 8th most polluted country in the world in 2022 in terms of annual average PM2.5 concentration (μg/m³), according to the IQAir 2022 World Air Quality Ranking.

The catastrophic effects of air pollution on human health are widely discussed and often become a recurring topic of concern during the post-monsoon months when the country’s plummeting air quality raises alarm bells. According to a study by the Global Observatory on Pollution and Health at Boston College, the Indian Council of Medical Research and the Public Health Foundation of India, air pollution claimed 1.67 million lives in India in 2019 – the highest air-pollution-related death toll globally at the time. More recently, a modelling study by the BMJ revealed that outdoor air pollution causes about 2.18 million deaths annually in the country.

Beyond human health impacts, the scientific community has also flagged many hidden impacts of air...

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