Dryland Congress 2026 Concludes with Delhi Declaration on Drylands
The three-day Dryland Congress 2026, held in New Delhi from 10-12 September 2026 and jointly organised by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), concluded with the adoption of the Delhi Declaration on Drylands (3D).
The closing day coincided with the UN Day for South-South Cooperation, and the declaration was endorsed by participating governments, institutions, and delegates from across the Global South.
The declaration sets a shared agenda for transforming dryland agriculture through collaboration, knowledge exchange, innovation, and collective action, with an emphasis on South-South and triangular cooperation.
New agreements were announced, including memoranda of understanding between ICRISAT and the Global Crop Diversity Trust, Avior Life Sciences, NIFTEM, Wipro Limited, and district administrations in Odisha, aimed at scaling dryland innovation.
UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and Land Degradation Neutrality
The UNCCD is one of the three Rio Conventions (alongside the UNFCCC on climate change and the CBD on biodiversity), adopted in Paris in June 1994 to address desertification and land degradation, especially in drylands. India signed the convention in 1994 and ratified it in 1996. The Convention is serviced by a Conference of Parties (COP) that meets periodically to review implementation.
Key Details
- Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) is a Sustainable Development Goal target (SDG 15.3) that India committed to achieving by 2030.
- India hosted UNCCD's COP14 in New Delhi in September 2019, where it raised its national land restoration target from 21 million hectares to 26 million hectares by 2030, and where the 2019 "Delhi Declaration" on land restoration was adopted.
- The nodal ministry for India's UNCCD commitments is the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC).
- Drylands cover roughly 40% of the earth's land area and are home to over two billion people, making them central to global food security and desertification concerns.
The 2026 Dryland Congress and its Delhi Declaration on Drylands (3D) build on India's established leadership in this space since COP14 in 2019, reinforcing India's continuing role as a convening power on dryland/desertification issues, though this 2026 congress and declaration are a distinct agricultural-research initiative from the UNCCD's own COP process.
South-South Cooperation Framework
South-South Cooperation (SSC) refers to collaboration between developing countries (the "Global South") in political, economic, social, environmental, and technical domains, as distinct from traditional North-South (developed-to-developing) aid. Triangular cooperation adds a third partner, typically a developed country or multilateral agency, to support South-South initiatives with funding or technical expertise.
Key Details
- The UN designated 12 September as the UN Day for South-South Cooperation, commemorating the adoption of the Buenos Aires Plan of Action for Promoting and Implementing Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries in 1978.
- India has positioned itself as a hub for South-South cooperation through initiatives like the India-UN Development Partnership Fund and technology-sharing platforms in agriculture, health, and renewable energy.
- Triangular cooperation models are increasingly used in agri-tech transfer, where Indian research institutions (like ICAR/ICRISAT) share dryland farming innovations with African and other Asian developing nations.
The Dryland Congress 2026 deliberately concluded on the UN Day for South-South Cooperation, and the Delhi Declaration on Drylands explicitly frames dryland agricultural solutions (seed systems, water-efficient cropping, climate-resilient varieties) as a domain for Global South knowledge-sharing rather than only North-South aid transfer.
ICRISAT and Dryland Agriculture Research
ICRISAT (International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics) is an international, non-profit agricultural research organisation headquartered in Patancheru near Hyderabad, established in 1972, focused on improving crop resilience in the semi-arid tropics (sorghum, pearl millet, chickpea, pigeonpea, groundnut). It is part of the CGIAR (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research) network.
Key Details
- ICRISAT's mandate crops are especially important to India's dryland and rainfed agriculture, which covers a majority of India's net sown area and is more vulnerable to climate variability than irrigated agriculture.
- India's rainfed/dryland areas account for around 51% of net sown area but contribute a smaller share of total foodgrain output, making productivity gains here a food-security priority.
- ICAR (Indian Council of Agricultural Research), established in 1929 under the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, is India's apex body for coordinating agricultural research and education, and co-organised this Congress with ICRISAT.
ICRISAT and ICAR's joint organisation of the Congress reflects the institutional pairing of a global agricultural research body with India's national apex research body, using India's dryland-farming research base as a demonstration model for other Global South nations.
- Dryland Congress 2026: held 10-12 September 2026 in New Delhi; jointly organised by ICAR and ICRISAT.
- UNCCD adopted: Paris, June 1994; India ratified in 1996; India hosted COP14 in New Delhi in 2019.
- Land Degradation Neutrality target year for India: 2030 (SDG 15.3); India's restoration target raised to 26 million hectares by 2030 at COP14.
- UN Day for South-South Cooperation: observed annually on 12 September.
- New MoUs announced at the Congress: ICRISAT with the Global Crop Diversity Trust, Avior Life Sciences, NIFTEM, Wipro Limited, and Odisha district administrations (Angul and Rayagada).