Climate Smart Agriculture - Building Resilience to Climate Change

Introduction 

Agriculture must go through significant productivity improvements to meet the combined challenges of rising global population and climate modifications. Climate smart agriculture (CSA) is an approach for transforming and reorienting agriculture system to support food security under the realities of climate change. Due to global warming widespread changes in climatic conditions mainly rainfall and temperature threaten agricultural production and increase the vulnerability of farmer’s livelihoods. This technology can have the capability to reduced or eliminated addressing threats by improving the adaptive capacity of farmers as well as resilience and resource use efficiency in an agricultural production system. 

Reasons for adopting CSA 

• As per FAO estimate, by the year 2050 world population will increase by one-third and food required for food security by 60%.

• Agriculture has become a high-risk profession that farmers increasingly prefer to migrate. In India as per National sample survey organization 2005 estimate 60% like to leave farming. 

• This has a direct impact on the socio-economic process that encourages young individuals to crimes of extortion and dacoits which has spread over the 1/3^rdof total district in which they are present. 

Pillars of CSA  

• Productivity:CSA aims to sustainably increase agricultural productivity and incomes from crops. This, in turn, will raise food and nutritional security. A key concept related to raising productivity is sustainable intensification. 

• Adaptation:CSA aims to reduce the exposure of farmers to short term risks, while also strengthening their resilience by building their capacity to adopt and prosper in the face of shocks and longer-term stresses.  

• Mitigation: CSA should help to reduce or remove green house gas emissions and we manage soil and trees in ways that maximizes their potential to acts as carbon sinks and absorb CO2 from the atmosphere.

How to adopt climate smart agriculture 

Different agricultural approaches and practices that contribute to climate change adaptation and mitigation are: 

• Eco-system based approaches

• Conservation agriculture

• Integrated nutrient and soil management

• Mulch cropping

• Cover cropping 

• Crop diversifications

• Integrated weed and pest management

• Organic agriculture

• Water and irrigation management

• Agro forestry

• Soil compaction management  

Limitations  

• Smart farming requires skill in robotics and computer based computer intelligence.

• Language of the internet of things would need to dramatically change in order to both farmers and information technology professionals to communicate to each other.

Conclusion

CSA is agriculture that moves away from unstable system and systems based on external inputs, towards systems that can be more efficient and resilient by relaying on natural auto-control mechanisms.  

Author - Himangini Joshi¹ and S.L. Mundra² 

1. Research scholar, Department of Agronomy, Rajasthan College of Agriculture, MPUAT- Udaipur, 313001, India 
2. Professor, Department of Agronomy, Rajasthan College of Agriculture, MPUAT- Udaipur, 313001, India 
Corresponding author email: dollyj674@gmail.com