Gloomy picture for Indian agriculture, says UN panel

India stares at an agriculture loss worth Rs 42,000 crore ($7 billion) by 2030, due to the dangerous consequences of climate change, says the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its latest report.The loss will mostly be on account of a sharp drop in wheat productivity because of the heat stress in the Indo-Gangetic plains, which produce almost 90 million tonnes of wheat annually.Ranging from Punjab and Haryana to West Bengal, this belt account for almost 15 per cent of global wheat production. The productivity decline could be as high as 51 per cent in the most favourable and high yielding area due to heat stress and heavy carbon dioxide load in the atmosphere.