The National Initiative on Climate Resilient Agriculture will receive Rs 350 crore for multiple projects — from developing heat-tolerant rice and wheat to tracking the spawning behaviour of marine and freshwater fish amid rising temperatures.
The programme will also demonstrate existing climate-resilient farm technologies to 1,00,000 farmers across 100 districts — including Cooch Bihar, Malda and South 24-Parganas in Bengal — labelled among the “most vulnerable” to impacts of climate change.
“We’re trying to enhance our capacity to adapt to the consequences of climate change,” said Mandapaka Maheshwari, head of crop sciences division at the Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture (CRIDA), Hyderabad, one of at least 16 participating ICAR institutions.
A network of Indian scientists has predicted that global warming driven by a rise in greenhouse gas emissions will raise temperatures in India between 1.7°C and 2.2°C by 2030 from the 1970 levels. Rainfall is expected to increase, but the number of rainy days will decrease and most regions of the country may experience five to 10 days of extreme rainfall, the network predicted last month.
During 2011-12, the initiative will launch strategic research projects to breed crop varieties tolerant to heat and reduced water levels, study how pests behave in warmer and possibly wetter weather, and identify indigenous breeds of cattle and buffalo that may appear better suited to adapt to change climate.
“We’re hoping the projects will yield site-specific packages for climate resilience,” Maheshwari told The Telegraph. In Bengal, the demonstration projects will showcase technologies to help farmers adapt to heavy rainfall, flooding and cyclones, Maheshwari said.
Her institution, the CRIDA in Hyderabad, will assess the vulnerability of rainfed crops such as pigeonpea, blackgram and groundnut and develop best-bet management strategies that would help farmers adapt to the anticipated changes.
The demonstration projects to be shown to 1,000 farmers from each of the 100 districts include the use of drought-tolerant short duration crop varieties, efficient intercropping methods that would increase resilience to climate change, moisture conservation to help overcome short dry spells, and methods to prevent inundation.
The Indian Agricultural Research Institute will seek new varieties of rice and wheat that are tolerant to high temperatures, while the Indian Institute of Horticulture Research will study pest and disease patterns in mango and tomato crops to develop pest-forecasting methods.
The fisheries institutions under the ICAR will study the spawning behaviour of marine and inland fish to identify changes — if any — in potential fishing zones that might appear as the average temperatures rise.
Climate impact simulations by the Indian Network of Climate Change Assessment have predicted higher catches of oil sardines and mackerels as temperatures rise.