There is a need to address climate risks through adaptation and bring immediate benefits by reducing the adverse impacts of climate change, Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Shobha Karandlaje has said.
Speaking at the inaugural session of the three-day G20 technical workshop on Climate Resilient Agriculture (CRA) here on Monday, she said the agriculture sector was the most sensitive and greatly influenced by climate change and it was already happening in G20 countries with the impacts on agriculture being felt already.
Disturbances such as drought, flood, unseasonal rains, high-intensity rainfall events, hailstorms, heat waves, cold waves, pest outbreaks and other perceived threats were being witnessed frequently as a major fallout of climate change. It was also posing many challenges to growth and development globally, she said.
On CRA, she said it would encompass adaptation and co-benefits of adaptation strategies to meet many challenges posed by climate change. It would be the ability of the system to bounce back and would essentially involve judicious and improved management of land, water, soil and genetic resources through adoption of best practices.
Climatic extremes
Director General of ICAR and Secretary of DARE Himanshu Pathak said agriculture in India was highly vulnerable to climate change and variability and the frequency of climatic extremes had increased in recent years resulting in increased risks to agricultural production and food security.
Citing studies, he said in the absence of adoption of adaptation measures, rain-fed rice yields in India were projected to go down by 20% by 2050 and by 47% by 2080, while irrigated rice yields were projected to slide by 3.5% by 2050 and by 5% by 2080. Similarly, the yields of wheat, maize and soybean were also projected to go down up to 40%, 23% and 13%, respectively by 2080 due to climate change.
However, to meet the challenges of sustaining domestic food production in the face of changing climate, the government had initiated several schemes to promote the adoption of climate change and to develop and promote climate resilient technologies that would help districts/regions prone to extreme weather conditions to cope with them. Over 1,600 scientists, research scholars and students from different parts of the country were engaged to undertake focused research in the field of climate change, he disclosed.
On the initiatives launched in India, he said the Network Project on Climate Change (NPCC) by the ICAR, and the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) consisting of eight National Missions were representing multi-pronged, long-term and integrated strategies for achieving goals in the context of climate change.
Additional Secretary of DARE Alka Nangia Arora, Director of ICAR-CRIDA V.K. Singh, Deputy Director General of ICAR S.K. Chaudhari, Assistant DG-ICAR Bikash Mandal and other also spoke.
