Managing Weather Aberrations through Real Time Contingency Planning

Abstract

To make the Indian agriculture more climate resilient, there is an urgent need to demonstrate and disseminate already available best practices on farmers’ fields in specially vulnerable regions, in addition climate change and its consequences are beginning to impact agriculture and allied sectors in India. In agriculture, rainfed agriculture is more vulnerable to climate to long term strategic research. In this context, there is a need to evolve innovative institutional mechanisms, like Village Level Climate Risk Management Committee, Custom Hiring Centers etc., for successful adoption, ownership and upscaling of proven practices. During 2012-13, the technology demonstration component of National Initiative on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) is being implemented across 23 network centers of All India Coordinated Research Project for Dryland Agriculture (AICRPDA), both on-station and on-farm, under 4 Sub-projects viz., (i) Real time contingency plan implementation in a participatory mode, (ii) Rainwater harvesting (in-situ and ex-situ) and efficient use, (iii) Efficient energy use and management, and (iv) Alternate land use. The focus was on participatory demonstration of location specific climate resilient agricultural technologies / package of practices developed by 23 AICRPDA Network Centers (including voluntary Centre, IGFRI, Jhansi). Major emphasis was given on managing various weather aberrations such as late onset of monsoon, midseason, terminal droughts and extreme weather such as floods, hailstorm etc. The on-farm program is being operational in 1456 ha in 36 adopted villages in 26 districts and 15 States representing major rainfed agro-ecologies in the country. I compliment Dr. Ch. Srinivasa Rao, Project Coordinator (Dryland Research), Dr. G. Ravindra Chary, Principal Scientist (Agronomy), Dr. GR. Maruthi Sankar, Principal Scientist (Agricultural Statistics) and Er. R. Nagarjuna Kumar, Scientist (Computer Application) for their efforts in program development, implementation and monitoring. I also appreciate the scientists and staff of AICRPDA and ORP centers for successfully under taking the programme particularly in NICRA villages. This report presents the details on demonstration of real time contingency planning of both on-station and on-farm along with the achievements in other thematic areas by AICRPDA Network Centers. I thank Dr. S. Ayyappan, Director General, ICAR, Dr. A.K. Sikka, DDG (NRM), Dr. A.K. Singh, former DDG (NRM), Dr. B. Mohan Kumar, ADG (Agron & AF) for providing guidance and support to AICRPDA from time to time.