Agencies:

Desertification and Drought Day, a United Nations observance day held on 17th June each year, will in 2020 focus on changing public attitudes to the leading driver of desertification and land degradation: humanity’s relentless production and consumption.

As populations become larger, wealthier and more urban, there is far greater demand for land to provide food, animal feed and fibre for clothing. Meanwhile, the health and productivity of existing arable land is declining, worsened by climate change.

To have enough productive land to meet the demands of ten billion people by 2050, lifestyles need to change.

Drought in India has resulted in tens of millions of deaths over the past few decades. Indian agriculture is heavily dependent on the country's climate: a favorable southwest summer monsoon is critical to securing water for irrigating India's crops. In parts of India, failure of the monsoon causes water shortages, resulting in below-average crop yields.

More than 44 per cent of India's areas were under various degrees of drought conditions. On June 6, real-time platform recorded 43.02 per cent area under "abnormally to exceptionally dry" conditions. However, the latest data showed an increase of 44.17 per cent.