Climate Change and Indian Agricultural Sector: Adaptation, Mitigation and Impact Assessment

The climate change will affect various crops during the entire growing period owing to extreme weather events. The adaptability of crops to climate variability would acquire significant dimension as frequent occurrence of extreme whether conditions may dictate as to how to cope up with the situation. The climate change will include extreme heat as well as cold waves, increased variability with respect to rabi and kharif crop production, increased extreme whether events in general, erratic onset as well as advances of monsoon, etc. Since farm production is likely to be adversely affected, the climate change will result in increased water management practices, improving land, soil and nutrition management practices, reduction in inefficiency in water use, preservation and enhancement of plant and animal genetic resources, adjustment to the pattern of food consumption, promotion of eco-friendly use adaptation, adaptation to ecosystem based approaches of risk management, shift in cropping pattern, adaptation to integrated farming system and integrated agro forestry systems, etc. There are areas where adaptation programme have already been developed and these include crop improvement, risk financing, drought proofing, disaster management, etc. Adapting agricultural systems to climate change is urgent because its impact is already evident and the trends will continue even if emissions of GHG emissions are stabilized at current levels.