Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Shri Narendra Singh Tomar has informed that Agriculture sector in India is vulnerable to climate change. Higher temperatures tend to reduce crop yields and favour weed and pest proliferation. Climate change can have negative effects on irrigated crop yields across agro-ecological regions both due to temperature rise and changes in water availability.Rainfed agriculture will be primarily impacted due to rainfall variability and reduction in number of rainy days.Analysis of impact of climate change under National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) project has found that climate change is expected to affect yields, particularly in crops like rice, wheat and maize.
Government of India has initiated various actions to mitigate affects of climate change:
- Varieties and cultivars tolerant to abiotic stresses are developed under strategic research component of NICRA.
- The technology demonstrations aim at enhancing the adaptive capacity of the farmers and also to cope with climate variability in the vulnerable districts to achieve climate resilient agriculture. Under NICRA, climate resilient technology demonstrations are implemented in 151 climatically vulnerable districts of the country.
- District Agriculture Contingency Plans have been prepared by ICAR-CRIDA, Hyderabad for 648 districts in the country to address the adverse weather conditions.