Impact of Climate Change On Farmers

Impact of Climate Change On Farmers

The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) under Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Government of India has launched a flagship network project namely National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA). The project aims to study the impact of climate change on agriculture including crops, livestock, horticulture and fisheries and to develop and promote climate resilient technologies in agriculture which will address vulnerable areas of the country and the outputs of the project help the districts and regions prone to extreme weather conditions like droughts, floods, frost, heat waves, etc. to cope with such extremes. The salient achievements of ICAR are as follows:

ICAR through its NICRA project, creates awareness about impact of climate change in agriculture among farmers. Capacity building programmes are being conducted to educate the farmers on various aspects of climate change for wider adoption of climate resilient technologies.The Climate Resilient Agriculture (CRA) Technology is implemented in 448 CRVs across 151 districts of 28 states/UTs. The Government has undertaken initiatives to deal with climate change through the National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA), which is one of the Missions within the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC). The mission aims to evolve and implement strategies to make Indian agriculture more resilient to the changing climate. Awareness/capacity building of farmers is an important part of the NMSA strategy. Initially NMSA was approved for three major components comprising, Rainfed Area Development (RAD); On-Farm Water Management (OFWM); and Soil Health Management (SHM). Subsequently, new programmes such as Soil Health Card (SHC), Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY), Mission Organic Value Chain Development in North Eastern Region (MOVCDNER), Per Drop More Crop, National Bamboo Mission (NBM) etc. were also included.

This information was given by the Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Shri Shivraj Singh Chouhan in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today.