Towards climate-resilient agriculture

What is the issue?

Efforts to make agriculture climate-resilient must be scaled up and consolidated in order to avoid the impacts of a warming world.

What does the IPCC report say?

The Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5ºC was recently approved by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The report focusses on keeping warming to under 1.5°C as compared to pre-industrial times.
The world has already warmed 1°C since pre-industrial times.
Hence, limiting warming to 0.5°C from now means the world can keep the ecosystems much as it is now.
Adding another 0.5°C on top of that essentially means a different and more challenging Earth for people and species.

Why is India vulnerable?

India’s agricultural ecosystem is distinguished by high monsoon dependence and with 85% small and marginal landholdings, it is highly sensitive to weather abnormalities.
There has been less than normal rainfall during the last four years, with 2014 and 2015 declared as drought years.
Even the recent monsoon season (June-September) ended with a rainfall deficit of 9%, which was just short of drought conditions.
There are also reports of an escalation in heat waves, which in turn affecting crops, aquatic systems and livestock.
The Economic Survey 2017-18 has estimated farm income losses between 15% and 18% on average, which could rise to 20%-25% for unirrigated areas without any policy interventions.
These projections underline the need for strategic change in dealing with climate change in agriculture.

What are the steps needed?

Interventions - Apart from traditional wisdom, farm extension services and climate resilient technologies should guide farmers’ responses to climate change.
The climate resilient techniques could include solar pumps, drip irrigation and sprinklers, which involves minimum consumption of electricity and water.
Climate exposure can also be reduced through proper agronomic management practices such as inter cropping, multiple cropping and crop-rotation at the field level.

Awareness - The NSS 70th round indicates that a very small segment of agricultural households utilised crop insurance due to a lack of sufficient awareness and knowledge.
Hence there is an urgent need to educate farmers by reorienting Krishi Vigyan Kendras with specific and more funds about climate change and risk-coping measures.
Framework - Climate adaptations are to be mainstreamed in the current developmental framework which is still at a nascent stage. (Economic Survey 2017-18).
Mainstreaming adaptation into the policy apparatus will enable identification of several barriers that prevent up-scaling efforts and adaptation by farmers.
Other initiatives towards building greater resilience in agriculture should include -

What is the importance of SAPCC in this regard?

The State Action Plans on Climate Change is an important platform for adaptation planning.
Under it, states are encouraged by the centre to come up with innovative and scalable projects to develop resilience against climate change and mainstream it in the planning processes.
Some of the components under these schemes are getting converged with major rural developmental programmes of the centre, which will further enhance their effectiveness at the grass-root level.
However, it needs to evolve further in terms of climate-oriented regional analysis to capture micro-level sensitivity and constraints.
Thus, greater expertise and consultations are required here for systematic prioritisation of actions to build a climate resilient agriculture.

Source: The Hindu