Developing a composite weighted indicator-based index for monitoring and evaluating climate-smart agriculture in India

Climate change is a serious concern that threatens global food security in several ways and exerts pressure on the already stressed agriculture system. The future prediction of a decline in the yield of major food grains like rice, wheat, and maize due to adverse impacts of increased warming and other climatic variabilities paves the way to shift the existing agriculture practices to more resource-efficient agriculture. This has entailed the government promoting climate-smart agriculture with its triple objectives, i.e. adaptation, mitigation, and food security. The current study developed a composite weighted indicator-based index to compute climate smartness score (CSS) at the farm level in India and tested its effectiveness in measuring the climate resilience of the farmers in Sehore, Satna, and Rajgarh districts of Madhya Pradesh, India, who adopted climate-smart practices in a pilot project. Thirty-four indicators grouped in five dimensions were selected from relevant peer-reviewed articles and various technical documents through an intensive literature review. These indicators were validated through online and offline expert consultation with ninety-two experts and farmers, and weights were assigned using AHP-express. The study inferred that the final scores and weightage across dimensions and the indicators did not differ significantly, implying that each dimension and indicator is important. A strong positive linear relationship between the climate smartness score and the crop yield further suggested that the wider adoption of these interventions would reduce the climate risk in agriculture for farming communities. This framework would help monitor the effectiveness of various climate-smart agriculture programmes and improve the implementation and upscaling of such programmes.