Climate Resilient Agriculture

Climate Resilient Agriculture is a strategic imperative for India’s food security and sustainability. Read here to learn more.

India’s agriculture stands at the frontline of climate change. Rising temperatures, erratic monsoons, frequent droughts and floods, declining soil fertility, and groundwater stress are increasingly undermining farm productivity and farmer livelihoods.

With nearly half of India’s cultivated area being rainfed and a large proportion of farmers operating on small and marginal holdings, climate risks pose a systemic threat to food security, rural incomes, and ecological sustainability. Against this backdrop, Climate Resilient Agriculture (CRA) has emerged as a strategic necessity rather than a policy choice.

Recent policy signals, particularly the BioE3 (Biotechnology for Economy, Environment, and Employment) Policy, underline the urgency of scaling Climate Resilient agricultural solutions through a coherent national roadmap. CRA represents India’s pathway to sustaining agricultural productivity while adapting to climate stress and reducing environmental degradation.

What is Climate Resilient Agriculture?

Climate Resilient Agriculture refers to farming systems and practices designed to anticipate, absorb, adapt to, and recover from climate shocks, while sustaining productivity, natural resources, and livelihoods.

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Objectives of CRA:

• Ensure long-term food and nutritional security
• Stabilise farm incomes amid climate volatility
• Reduce dependence on chemical- and water-intensive inputs
• Enhance soil, water, and ecosystem resilience
• Lower agriculture’s vulnerability to climate-induced shocks

Core Strategies of Climate Resilient Agriculture

• Climate-Adapted Crops: Development and adoption of crop varieties tolerant to heat, drought, submergence, salinity, and pests. For example, submergence-tolerant rice varieties such as Scuba Rice significantly reduce flood-related crop losses.
• Water Stewardship: Efficient water management through drip and sprinkler irrigation, rainwater harvesting, and precision irrigation improves water productivity, especially in drought-prone regions.
• Soil Health Management: Practices such as zero tillage, cover cropping, organic inputs, and residue retention improve soil structure, moisture retention, and carbon sequestration.
• Agroforestry and Integrated Farming: Integration of trees, crops, and livestock enhances microclimate regulation, diversifies income, and improves ecological stability.
• Crop Diversification: Reducing monocropping by promoting pulses, millets, oilseeds, and horticulture spreads climate risk and strengthens nutritional security.
• Digital and Early-Warning Systems: Weather forecasts, AI-based advisories, climate alerts, and satellite-based monitoring enable timely farm decisions, reducing climate-related losses.

Why Does India Need Climate Resilient Agriculture?

High Climate Vulnerability

• Indian agriculture is increasingly exposed to heatwaves, erratic rainfall, droughts, floods, and cyclones.
• Conventional farming practices, heavily dependent on predictable monsoons and high external inputs, are becoming increasingly unsustainable.

Dependence on Rainfed Agriculture

• Around 51% of India’s net sown area is rainfed, contributing nearly 40% of food production.
• This makes a large share of agricultural output extremely sensitive to climate variability.

Threat to Food Security

Climate projections paint a stark picture. Without adaptation:

• Rainfed rice yields may decline by up to 47% by 2080
• Wheat yields could fall by around 40%
• Kharif maize yields may drop by over 20%

Such losses would severely strain food availability, affordability, and nutritional outcomes for a growing population.

Limits of Input-Intensive Agriculture

• Rising costs of fertilizers, pesticides, and irrigation, coupled with soil degradation and groundwater depletion, have eroded the resilience of chemical-intensive farming systems.

Strategic and Environmental Imperatives

• Climate Resilient agriculture reduces import dependence, strengthens farmer incomes, lowers emissions, and supports India’s strategic autonomy in food systems, aligning economic growth with environmental sustainability.

Government Initiatives Supporting Climate Resilient Agriculture

National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA)

• Launched by ICAR in 2011, NICRA focuses on Climate Resilient technologies, crop varieties, and farming practices. Climate Resilient villages under NICRA demonstrate location-specific solutions such as direct-seeded rice, zero-till wheat, and stress-tolerant crops.

National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA)

• NMSA promotes soil health management, water-use efficiency, and integrated farming systems, particularly in rainfed and vulnerable regions.

Promotion of Organic and Natural Farming

• Schemes such as Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY) and Mission Organic Value Chain Development for North Eastern Region (MOVCDNER) encourage biofertilizers, biopesticides, and reduced chemical use, improving soil health and resilience.

Digital Agriculture Ecosystem

• Initiatives like AgriStack, Digital Agriculture Mission, Kisan Drones, Soil Health Cards, and AI-based advisory platforms support precision agriculture, though adoption remains uneven.

Biotechnology and Research Push

• ICAR, DBT, and IARI have developed over 100 Climate Resilient crop varieties. The BioE3 Policy positions biotechnology-led climate resilience as a national priority, signalling intent to scale innovation beyond pilot projects.

Challenges in Scaling Climate Resilient Agriculture

• Low Adoption among Small and Marginal Farmers: Nearly 86% of Indian farmers are small and marginal, often lacking credit access, risk-bearing capacity, and awareness to adopt CRA technologies.
• Quality and Trust Deficit in Bio-Inputs: Inconsistent quality of biofertilizers and biopesticides undermines farmer confidence and adoption.
• Slow Diffusion of Climate Resilient Seeds: Despite scientific advances, stress-tolerant and genome-edited crops occupy a limited share of total seed use, constrained by regulatory delays and weak extension.
• Digital Divide: While mobile connectivity is widespread, digital literacy remains low, limiting effective use of AI advisories, precision farming tools, and digital platforms.
• Soil and Water Degradation: Land degradation and groundwater stress reduce the effectiveness of CRA interventions unless resource restoration is prioritised.
• Fragmented Governance: CRA initiatives are spread across agriculture, biotechnology, climate, and digital missions, resulting in policy overlaps and implementation gaps in the absence of a unified national framework.

Way Forward

• Develop a Coherent National CRA Roadmap: Under the BioE3 framework, India must align biotechnology, climate adaptation, digital agriculture, and farm policy into a unified strategy to scale proven solutions.
• Strengthen Global Cooperation: Engage with FAO and learn from international models such as the US Climate-Smart Agriculture initiative, the EU’s Green Deal, and China’s water-efficient farming systems, adapting them to Indian conditions.
• Scale Digital and Precision Agriculture: Expand AI-based advisories, climate alerts, and precision irrigation while bridging the digital divide through targeted digital literacy initiatives such as Bhashini.
• Restore Soil and Water Resources: Integrate CRA with watershed development, micro-irrigation, soil carbon restoration, and groundwater recharge programmes.

Conclusion

Climate Resilient Agriculture is no longer optional for India; it is central to sustaining food security, farmer livelihoods, and ecological balance in an era of accelerating climate risk.

While India has laid a strong institutional and scientific foundation through NICRA, NMSA, digital missions, and biotechnology initiatives, scaling impact demands a coherent national CRA roadmap.

Aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals, such a roadmap can transform Indian agriculture into a resilient, productive, and sustainable system capable of meeting future food demands under a changing climate.