Climate-Resilient Agriculture in India

Climate-resilient agriculture means farming in a way that can survive and recover from the shocks of a changing climate, like heat waves, droughts, floods and irregular rain. It uses better seeds, smarter water use, healthier soils and new farming methods so that yields and incomes do not collapse when the weather turns bad. It also tries to reduce the greenhouse gases that farming itself releases.

Why does India need it?

Indian farming is very exposed to the weather.

• A large part of India's farmland is rainfed, meaning it has no assured irrigation and depends on the monsoon. Rainfed areas cover more than half of the net sown area and produce about 40% of India's food.
• Most Indian farmers have small plots and little savings. One bad season can push them into debt.
• Climate change is making heat waves hotter and rainfall more uneven. For example, very high temperatures in March can shrivel wheat grains just before harvest.

How big is the risk?

Studies under ICAR's national climate project found that, without adaptation:

• Rainfed rice yields could fall by about 20% by 2050 and 47% by 2080.
• Irrigated rice yields could fall by about 3.5% by 2050 and 5% by 2080.
• Wheat yields could fall by about 19.3% by 2050 and 40% by 2080.

ICAR also assessed 651 mainly agricultural districts. It found 310 districts vulnerable to climate change: 109 "very highly" vulnerable and 201 "highly" vulnerable.

Where did India's policy come from?

In 2008, India launched the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) with eight national missions. One of them is the National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA), which was put into action in 2014-15. In 2011, ICAR started a research network called National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA).

How does NICRA work?

NICRA is a multi-institution project of ICAR. Its lead institute is the Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture (CRIDA), Hyderabad. It works in steps:

1. Study the risk: Research how heat, drought and floods affect crops, livestock, horticulture and fisheries.
2. Develop solutions: Create stress-tolerant seeds and better farm methods.
3. Show farmers: Demonstrate these methods in real villages. It has done this in 448 "Climate Resilient Villages" in 151 climatically vulnerable districts.
4. Build capacity: Train farmers and extension staff.

What does NMSA do?

It has four main parts:

• Rainfed Area Development (RAD): promotes Integrated Farming Systems, where crops, animals, trees and fish ponds are combined so that if one fails, others still earn.
• Soil Health Management (SHM): the Soil Health Card scheme (2015) is its backbone. The card tells a farmer what nutrients the soil lacks and how much fertiliser to use.
• Per Drop More Crop (PDMC): promotes drip and sprinkler irrigation. Since 2015-16, it is part of the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY).
• Climate Change and Sustainable Agriculture: Monitoring, Modelling and Networking (CCSAMMN): the research and knowledge arm.

Common climate-resilient practices

These are the tools a farmer can actually use:

• Stress-tolerant seeds: varieties that survive heat, drought, floods or salty soil. In August 2024, 109 high-yielding, climate-resilient and biofortified varieties of 61 crops (34 field crops and 27 horticultural crops) were released at IARI, New Delhi.
• Water saving: drip and sprinkler irrigation, farm ponds, and Direct Seeded Rice (DSR), where rice seeds are sown directly instead of transplanting seedlings into flooded fields.
• Soil care: zero tillage (sowing without ploughing), keeping crop residue on the field, and balanced fertiliser use.
• Changing sowing dates and crops: for example, sowing wheat earlier so it escapes March heat, or growing millets in dry areas.
• Risk cover: crop insurance under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY, 2016) and weather advisories from the India Meteorological Department (IMD) through Agromet services.

Commonly confused concepts

• Climate-resilient vs climate-smart agriculture: Climate-resilient farming focuses mainly on coping with climate shocks (adaptation). Climate-smart agriculture, a term promoted by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), has three goals: higher productivity, adaptation and lower emissions (mitigation).
• Adaptation vs mitigation: Adaptation means adjusting to climate change (heat-tolerant seeds). Mitigation means reducing the causes of climate change (cutting methane from paddy fields).
• NICRA vs NMSA: NICRA is an ICAR research project (2011). NMSA is a Ministry of Agriculture mission under the NAPCC that funds action on the ground (2014-15).
• Rainfed vs dryland farming: Rainfed farming depends only on rain, in any rainfall zone. Dryland farming is a type of rainfed farming in low-rainfall areas (usually under about 750 mm a year).

Issues, criticism and the way forward

• Slow spread: Many good technologies stay in demonstration villages and do not reach most farmers.
• Paddy and water: Flooded paddy fields release methane, a strong greenhouse gas, and use huge amounts of water. Policies that favour paddy make change harder.
• Money and knowledge: Drip systems and new machines cost money that small farmers often lack. Timely weather advice and training are also uneven.
• Insurance gaps: Crop insurance claims are sometimes delayed, and some states have left PMFBY at times.
• Way forward: Experts suggest mapping risk district by district, faster seed supply of resilient varieties, more micro-irrigation, reward systems for water-saving and low-emission farming, better weather-based advice, and strong FPOs so that small farmers can afford new tools together.

Concepts to Know

• Resilience: The ability to take a shock and bounce back. A resilient farm may still be hit by drought, but it does not collapse.
• Rainfed area: Farmland with no assured irrigation, where crops depend on rainfall.
• Integrated Farming System (IFS): Combining crops, livestock, trees and fish on one farm so that the waste of one becomes the input of another and income comes from many sources.
• Biofortified crop: A crop bred to have more nutrients, such as iron or zinc, in the grain itself.
• Greenhouse gases: Gases like carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide that trap heat in the atmosphere and warm the planet.