Resilient Crops and Cropping Systems to Cope with Weather Aberrations in Rainfed Agriculture

Abstract

About 72 million ha of net sown area in India is rainfed which is practiced in diverse climates and agroecologies, contributing to about 40% of country’s food basket. Thea agricultural production, productivity and stability in rainfed areas is more vulnerable to climate variability particularly during kharif due to its high dependency on south-west (SW) monsoon. While one part of the country or the other experiences monsoon failure almost every year, most states do encounter droughts once in 2 to 4 years. Monsoon failures result in drought which has serious implications for small and marginal farmers and livelihoods of the rural poor. It is evident that the rainfed agriculture is being highly impacted due to frequent weather aberrations such as delayed onset of monsoon and / or in-season drought during crop growing period in one or the other part of the country. Real Time Contingency Planning (RTCP) was conceptualized in All India Coordinated Research Project for Dryland Agriculture (AICRPDA), to minimize the crop production and productivity losses and to improve the efficiency of the rainfed production systems. RTCP is considered as “any contingency measure, either technology related (land, soil, water, crop) or institutional and policy based, which is implemented based on real time weather pattern (including extreme events) in any crop growing season”. The major objectives of RTCP are to (i) establish a crop with optimum plant population during the delayed onset of monsoon; (ii) ensure better performance of crops during seasonal drought (early / mid and terminal drought) and extreme events; (iii) enhance performance, improve productivity and income; and (iv) enhance the adaptive capacity and livelihoods of the farmers. Since 2011, under National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA), the 23 Centers of AICRPDA are conducting on-station and on-farm demonstrations / trials under NICRA with the focus on RTCP implementation and preparedness to cope with weather aberrations. The RTCPs implementation has been in a two-pronged approach i.e. (i) Real-time contingency measures and (ii) Preparedness. During first phase (2011-17), RTCP was implemented in 34 adopted villages in 15 states. In the second phase (2017-20), the on-farm programme as Cluster approach was extended to 58 adopted villages in 15 states. Varieties of major rainfed crops were assessed for their suitability under delayed onset of monsoon conditions in the villages and best performing varieties were identified. Similarly, alternate and resilient crops and cropping systems were demonstrated in AICRPDA-NICRA villages as preparedness to cope with weather aberrations. The salient findings are presented in this bulletin.