- Climate-resilient agriculture is rising as yield volatility, soil stress and water scarcity intensify, making resilience as crucial as productivity for India’s food security.
- Climate-Resilient Agriculture (CRA) refers to farming systems that sustainably increase productivity, enhance adaptation to climate stress, reduce emissions and improve long-term food security using biotechnology, bio-inputs and digital tools.
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Current Status of India’s Climate-Resilient Agriculture
- NICRA Footprint: Since 2011, climate-resilient practices under NICRA have been demonstrated in 448 climate-resilient villages, covering drought, flood, heat and cyclone-prone regions.
- Mission Backing: The National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture targets rainfed areas (~60% of cultivated land) with a focus on soil health, water efficiency and integrated farming.
- Bio-Input Market: India has emerged as a major bio-input hub, with biofertiliser and biopesticide markets growing at double-digit rates, reflecting early CRA adoption.
- Digital Push: Over 1,000 Agritech Startups now offer AI advisories, precision irrigation and crop monitoring, though adoption remains uneven across regions.
- Scientific Capacity: India has 700+ ICAR institutions and Krishi Vigyan Kendras, giving it one of the world’s largest public agricultural R&D networks.
Need for Climate-Smart Farming in India
- Rainfed Exposure: About 51% of India’s net sown area is rainfed, yet it produces ~40% of national food output, making food supply highly climate-sensitive.
- Yield Decline Risk: Climate projections indicate a 3–22% fall in rice yields by 2100, with worst-case losses exceeding 30% under high-emission scenarios.
- Population Pressure: India supports ~18% of the global population on ~11% of global arable land, demanding productivity gains under stress.
- Import Vulnerability: Climate shocks can raise cereal imports; E.g., food inflation crossed 10% in multiple months post-2023 extreme weather events.
- Resource Stress: Agriculture consumes ~80% of India’s freshwater, while groundwater blocks in over 25% districts are already over-exploited (CGWA Report).
Challenges Faced
- Smallholder Constraint: Over 85% of Indian farmers are small and marginal, limiting affordability and scale of CRA technologies.
- Digital Divide: Only ~40% of rural households have reliable internet access, restricting digital advisories.
- Soil Degradation: About 30% of India’s land is degraded, weakening the effectiveness of interventions.
- Input Quality Gaps: Substandard biofertilizers erode farmer trust; E.g., inspections have found around 15–20% of biofertilizer samples failing to meet prescribed quality standards in recent years.
Way Forward
- Climate Seeds: Fast-track climate-tolerant varieties to reduce yield shocks; E.g., ICAR-developed rice varieties Sahbhagi Dhan (drought-tolerant) and CR Dhan 801 / Swarna-Sub1 (flood-tolerant).
- Bio-Input Quality: Enforce strict quality control and traceability for biofertilizers and biopesticides; E.g., strengthen testing with batch-wise QR verification, similar to India’s neem-coated urea monitoring.
- Risk Finance: De-risk farmer adoption through insurance and transition support; E.g., expand PM Fasal Bima Yojana to explicitly cover heatwaves, floods and dry spells.
- Policy Convergence: Create a unified national CRA roadmap under BioE3; E.g., State extension and biotech approvals on the model of China’s centrally coordinated climate-agriculture missions.
As the FAO reminds us, “Climate change is not a future threat, but a present reality.” Mainstreaming climate-resilient agriculture is thus essential to protect India’s farmers, stabilise food systems, and secure nutrition for future generations.
Reference: The Hindu
PMF IAS Pathfinder for Mains – Question 489
Approach
- Introduction: Write a brief introduction about climate-resilient agriculture.
- Body: Write knowledge and extension gaps and shortcomings, and suggest reforms for effective dissemination.
- Conclusion: Emphasis on an inclusive and efficient extension system to ensure India’s food security.
