Indian agriculture being a gamble of monsoons, crop yields continue to be climate sensitive and the fluctuations in temperature and rainfall pattern adversely affect crops productivity, thus threatening food security in India. In India, climate change has triggered an increase in temperatures by 0.6 °C to 25.1 °C between 1901 and 2018, causing shifts in monsoon patterns. According to government reports, productivity of most crops is likely to decrease 10-40 per cent by 2100 due to increases in temperature, rainfall variability, and decreases in irrigation water. The major impacts of climate change will be on rain fed or un-irrigated crops, which are cultivated in nearly 60 per cent of cropland.
A temperature rise by 0.5°C in winter is projected to reduce rain fed wheat yield by 0.45 tonnes per hectare in India. Government of India’s economic survey (2018) estimated that the annual loss of $ 9-10 billion was due to the adverse effects of climate change. To overcome this, the Government of India highlighted the significance of a multi-stakeholder approach in addressing climate challenges and took up climate smart agriculture measures since 2011 to support the small and marginal farmers, who constitute 85 per cent of the farming population.
On January 18 the National Institution or Transforming India (NITI Aayog), the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’Welfare (MoA&FW), Government of India, and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) jointly launched the ‘Investment Forum for Advancing Climate Resilient agrifood Systems in India’ in New Delhi.
This initiative aims to develop an investment and partnership strategy to advance climate resilient agrifood systems among the government, private sectors, and farmers’ organisations and financial institutions in India.
The government of India has been active in this space and taken the lead in building climate resilient agrifood systems through prioritised actions in mitigation and adaptation domains since 2011 with the formation of National Innovation on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA), a network project of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) with an outlay of Rs 350 crore. The project aims to enhance the resilience of Indian agriculture, covering crops, livestock and fisheries to climatic variability and climate change through development and application of improved production and risk management technologies. The government has implemented the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) that provides the overarching framework for climate actions, through national missions in specific areas. The National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA), one of the Missions under NAPCC, includes programmatic interventions like Soil Health Card, Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana, Mission Organic Value Chain Development for Northeastern Region, Rainfed Area Development, National Bamboo Mission and Sub-mission on Agro-Forestry. Besides, the NMSA aims at promoting location specific improved agronomic practices through soil health management, enhanced water use efficiency, judicious use of chemicals, crop diversification.
In addition, the country has many other schemes in the last 13 years such as the National Adaptation Fund for Climate Change (NAFCC), Climate Smart Village, Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojna (PMSKY), Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojna (PMFBY), Soil Health Card Scheme, National Water Mission (NWM), Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojna (PKVY), Biotech-KISAN, Neem Coated Urea, National Livestock Mission which helped in developing climate resilient technologies for various crops under state of the art climate change research facilities established at several institutes across the country.
To read more click on: https://agrospectrumasia.com/e-magazine
