Not just droughts or shifting monsoons, the current Indian agriculture and food system faces multiple challenges. These include high input costs, deteriorating soil health, continued debt cycles of farmers, inequitable market access, and lack of financial security, particularly for small and medium-landholding farmers. Climate variability has compounded these challenges and threatens the livelihood of around 60 per cent of the rural Indian population. According to a government report, 11 Indian states have a high probability of future risks in agricultural production. These risks mandate a shift from India's current production methods towards a more resilient agriculture system.
What is climate smart agriculture
As a response to this need at a global scale, the concept of climate-smart agriculture was first introduced by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in 2010 to ensure food security and achievement of developmental goals.
It had three main objectives:
1. To sustainably increase food security by increasing agricultural productivity and incomes;
2. To build resilience and adapt to climate change
3. To reduce or remove greenhouse gas emissions where possible.
This agricultural system links directly to several UN Sustainable Development Goals — no poverty, zero hunger, and climate action, with an implicit focus on gender equality. This is imperative in the Global South, with its high livelihood dependence on agriculture and heightened focus on adaptation to climate vulnerability.
India, too, has taken active measures to address its agricultural challenges in a warming world—both at the national and state levels. As early as 2011, India launched the National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) to tackle climatic variability by developing improved production and risk management technologies such as pest-resilient and draught-resistant crop varieties and carbon sequestration through the use of biochar. Then the National Mission on Sustainable Agriculture from the National Action Plan on Climate Change was operationalised in 2014-15. It promotes context-specific agricultural practices by focusing on soil health management, improved water-reuse efficiency, optimal chemical use and crop diversification. States are starting to understand the urgency too. Programmes such as the Odisha Integrated Irrigation Project for Climate Resilient Agriculture, Maharashtra’s Project on Climate Resilient Agriculture, and Bihar's Climate Resilient Agriculture Programme have been promoting climate-resilient technologies like direct seeded rice (DSR), drum seeder, micro-irrigation, and nutrient support tools to improve production.
However, climate-smart agriculture has a rather broad definition, and there is growing concern that some of these "climate-smart" technological solutions still have an overt dependence on agrochemicals like weedicides and fossil-fuel-powered machinery. A lack of sustainable and inclusive input value chains can potentially reinforce the conventional agrifood models leading to more risks and vulnerability. Climate-smart agriculture must be holistic, include multidisciplinary approaches, consider the entire agricultural value chain, and move beyond simple technological solutions.
Making agriculture truly smart
Moving forward, India needs to focus on the following four steps to making its agricultural sector more climate resilient.
Reassess what to grow
We must rethink what crops we are growing and promote geography-specific ones that align with the soil's agroclimatic zone and biophysical nature. There is also a need to shift from input-intensive cropping systems, especially in highly vulnerable regions, to cropping systems that can optimise resource utilisation. For example, according to a recent study by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), the Odisha Millet Mission enhanced the resilience of farmers by reintroducing millets and institutionalising it at a community level. Millet is a drought-resistant crop, which is more suited to the state's climatic conditions and the needs of tribal farming communities.
Rethink how to grow
Adopting climate-resilient practices such as mulching, micro-irrigation, intercropping, and crop diversification helps optimise the input supply and mitigate climate and market risks like price volatility. However, technologies must innovate to reduce the heavy dependency on fossil fuels and agrochemicals to ensure sustainability. Indigenous and traditional knowledge are crucial for farmers and should not be discounted. For example, integrated rice-fish systems (where fish are grown in puddled rice fields) are used by farmers in Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Laos, and Thailand. In Bihar, paira cropping remains a prevalent practice for stubble management, where farmers sow lentils, mungbean etc., in the standing rice crop two weeks before harvest.
Recalibrate the enabling ecosystem
Developing and strengthening the input and output value chains is imperative for climate-smart and responsive agriculture. There is a need to promote custom hiring centres for technology access, bio-resource centres, decentralised seed banks, and gender-responsive capacity building to aid farmers and prepare for market shocks. This requires multistakeholder collaboration with the private sector, civil society organisations, and financial institutions. This can help develop innovative solutions for accessible and affordable credit, technology transfer, and crop insurance. For example, in the Philippines, the Farmer-Scientist Partnership for Development (MASIPAG) is a network of non-governmental organisations, scientists and farmer groups that promotes sustainable use and management of natural resources through input support like providing indigenous rice varieties and capacity building.
Re-empower women in agriculture
The inequity in access to agricultural resources between men and women cultivators is well established. FAO estimated that providing women farmers in developing countries with the same access as men to agricultural resources like land ownership and agricultural support could boost production by 20 to 30 per cent. According to a recent study by CEEW, only 45 per cent of the analysed interventions on climate-adaptive water management practices in Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar incorporate provisions for women farmers, primarily focusing on participation in capacity-building programmes while neglecting holistic gender-responsive investment, planning, and implementation. Therefore, adopting a gender-responsive approach to climate smart agriculture is imperative. New technologies and techniques must align with women cultivators' needs and priorities.
Building resilient food systems can deliver on multiple national priorities, including nutritional security, doubling farmer's income, and India's commitment to achieving net zero by 2070. India has already started making significant strides towards enhancing resilience in agriculture. It is now necessary for state and non-state actors to collaborate on knowledge-sharing platforms and act on bridging the production, value chains and consumption solutions. Only then can we create climate-resilient agri-food systems.
Sijo Abraham is a Programme Associate at the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW). Views are personal.
‘This article is part of a series for Sustainability 100+ S3. Learn More: https://www.sustainability100plus.com/’
Moneycontrol journalists were not involved in the creation of the article.
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