Climate Smart Agriculture

Climate smart agriculture (CSA) is an approach that helps to guide actions needed to transform and reorient agricultural systems to effectively support development and ensure food security in a changing climate. CSA aims to tackle three main objectives:

. sustainably increasing agricultural productivity and incomes

. adapting and building resilience to climate change

. reducing and removing greenhouse gas emissions, where possible.

BENEFITS:

• Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) takes into consideration the diversity of social, economic and environmental contexts, including agro-ecological zones.
• Implementation requires identification of climate-resilient technologies and practices for management of water, energy, land, crops, livestock.
• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has highlighted that future agricultural growth will be impacted by climate change. This phenomenon leads to an increase in frequency and intensity of extreme events such as drought, heavy rainfall, flooding and high maximum temperatures. Water scarcity and dry regions are likely to increase significantly by the end of the century.
• Besides, greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, including due to burning of crop fields and residues, are a principal contributor to climate change. Hence, there is a dire need to initiate a paradigm shift in agricultural development approaches and practices to mitigate the effects of climate change and make agriculture sustainable.

  SIGNIFICANCE

• The management of land, crops, livestock, aquaculture and capture fisheries to balance near-term food security and livelihoods needs with priorities for adaptation and mitigation
• Ecosystem and landscape management to conserve ecosystem services that are important for food security, agricultural development, adaptation and mitigation
• Services for farmers and land managers that can enable them to better manage the risks and impacts of climate change and undertake mitigation actions
• Changes in the wider food system including demand-side measures and value chain interventions that enhance the benefits of climate-smart agriculture.

 

INITIATIVES IN INDIA

• The Government of India is implementing the National Mission of Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA), one of the eight missions under the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC). 
• Parallelly, the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY) envisages “Per Drop More Crop”, that is, promoting micro/drip irrigation to conserve water. 
• There is also a push to cluster-based organic farming through the Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY). 
• The mission of these programmes is to extensively leverage adaptation of climate-smart practices and technologies in conjunction with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and state governments.
• Currently, the Kisan Call Centre Services, Kisan Suvidha mobile application and Common Service Centres are supplementing the efforts towards farmer extension services initiated by the Agriculture Technology Management Agency (ATMA), a flagship farmer-oriented programme to Improvise various skills not only in agriculture but also in other allied departments like Animal Husbandry , Horticulture, Fisheries and Sericulture.