Abstract

Agriculture is the major sector supporting the Indian economy. The reported and projected impact of climate change probes about its sustainability and stability. The present paper aims to address interrelated issues by evaluating the pertinent literature. The issue of climate change reflects that the annual temperature increased by 0.5°C during the period 1901–2003, and to impede the catastrophic repercussions of climate change, the farming community resorted to adaptation strategies, mainly the adoption of resistant cultivars. The Central Government initiated the mega project National Initiatives on Climate Research Agriculture (NICRA) with a budget of 200 crores during the year 2010–11 and the National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA) scheme with a budget support of 1 08 000 crores to provide resilient to agriculture with one of the main components on the development of crop cultivars. It deals with the impact of climate change on Agriculture in India, climate change assessment and projection, the initiatives of the Government of India for climate change adaptation in agriculture, explores the methodologies and new knowledge generated from the studies conducted by the partnering institutions and the potential technologies that would minimize GHG emission to support increasing resilience against climate change in sustaining crop production.

Introduction

With a population of 1.27 billion, India is the second most populous country in the world. It is the seventh largest country in the world with an area of 3.28 million sqkms. India is the world’s largest producer of milk, pulses, and jute and ranks as the second largest producer of rice, wheat, sugarcane, groundnut, vegetables, fruit, and cotton. It is also one of the leading producers of spices, fish, poultry, livestock, and plantation crops. Worth $ 2.1 trillion, India is the world’s third-largest economy after the US and China. Agriculture, with its allied sectors, is the largest source of livelihood in India. Seventy percent of its rural households still depend primarily on agriculture for their livelihood, with 82 percent of farmers being small and marginal. In 2017-18, total food grain production was estimated at 275 million tonnes (MT).  India is the largest producer (25% of global production), consumer (27% of world consumption,) and importer (14%) of pulses in the world. India’s annual milk production was 165 MT (2017-18), making India the largest producer of milk, jute, and pulses, and with the world’s second-largest cattle population of 190 million in 2012. Anthropogenic activities, such as industrialization and deforestation, have caused significant, long-term alterations in temperature and weather conditions, resulting in the phenomenon known as human-induced or modern climate change. In India, where agriculture is the backbone of the rural economy,climate-related stresses significantly impact agricultural stability. In India, more than half the tilled land is rain dependent and 86% of farmers are small and marginal, with land holding less than 2 ha. Agriculture is the only sector that has contributed to beneficial progress in the COVID-19 pandemic with a growth of 3.4% that resulted in an increase in its share in gross domestic product (GDP) to 19.9% in 2020–21 from 17.8% in 2019–20 with about 50% of the workforce engaged in this sector. Over the past two decades, the country has experienced frequent extreme weather events like drought, flood, cyclones, heatwaves, and cold waves, making Indian agriculture highly risk-prone. The Fourth IPCC Report brought climate change’s global and regional impacts on agriculture, water resources, natural ecosystems, and food security. Among the several highly populated regions of the world, South Asia has been categorized as one of the most vulnerable areas. Although climate change impacts are being witnessed worldwide, countries like India are concerned because of the huge population, which is primarily dependent on agriculture for livelihood.

Click Here To Download The Paper