Research on climate change is 40 per cent of ICAR’s budget: S.K. Chaudhari

ICAR’s Deputy Director General of Natural Resources Management says farmers are prepared to adopt new technologies to ensure climate resilience.

In 2011, ICAR started the National Initiative on Climate Resilient Agriculture. | Photo Credit: NAGARA GOPAL

Last month, the Prime Minister released a list of 109 crop varieties of cereals, millets, pulses, and vegetables developed by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). A major feature of these new varieties was climate resilience. S. K. Chaudhari, Deputy Director General, Natural Resources Management at ICAR, was present at a recent event organised by the International Water Management Institute and the Tata Trust at the National Dairy Development Board in Anand, Gujarat. He spoke to Frontline about the many climate initiatives undertaken by ICAR over the years and the latest advancements.

Edited excerpts:

How long has ICAR been focussing on climate-related programmes? When did the investment begin and why?

In the beginning of the 2000s, climate research and related platforms were established all around the world. During that time, India too realised that climate change would soon become a huge future problem. And so, ICAR began investing in climate research. We had small programmes first; our researchers also began to travel abroad to learn about simulation modelling of the climate to help develop climate preparedness.

In 2004, we started the Network Project on Climate Change (NPCC) with a limited budget focussing on basic and fundamental aspects of climate. While working on NPCC, we realised that climate change would not only affect crop components, but also fisheries, the animal and poultry sector, small farm mechanisation and small farm holdings… the entire integrated system would be affected. So, we wanted to launch a mega programme where all components can be brought together.

So, in 2011 ICAR started the National Initiative on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA). For five years, we invested heavily in this project. We started with basic and fundamental research and slowly diversified into demonstrating technologies on the field. We involved many more partners, particularly people who are working creatively on innovations in the area of climate change. Through NICRA, the research component in various sectors was spread across different agro-ecological and agro-climatic regions and also river basin-scales. We also wanted to demonstrate this on the ground at the village scale. So, we started TDC in villages.

Initially, we began with 151 villages with the help of Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs). The KVKs were provided with technologies that they demonstrated to farmers on the field. Recently, we began work with a cluster of villages.

How many villages are you working with now and who are the research partners?

At present, we have 446 villages where we are trying climate-proofing and climate resilience. We have the support of several departments for this endeavour and also some convergence with existing government schemes. For research, we collaborated with the Department of Science and Technology, Department of Biotechnology, and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research.

Beyond Indian partners, we have also started working with international agencies who wanted to learn about our initiatives. Now, in all meetings of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the G20, BRICS, ASEAN… at all platforms, we provide our perspective on climate-resilient agriculture. 

S.K. Chaudhari, Deputy Director General, Natural Resources Management, ICAR says the organisation is trying climate-proofing and climate resilience in 446 villages. | Photo Credit: By Special Arrangement

Can you explain what a climate-resilient village is in simple terms?

Flooding is a common phenomenon in eastern India. The duration and depth of the flooding matters. Regular rice varieties often fail. So, ICAR developed submergence-tolerant rice varieties that can sustain under water-logged situations for up to 30-35 days. In the case of wheat, which is grown in the Indo-Gangetic plains, it matures in the month of March. But if the temperature rises in the third week of March and goes beyond 35°C—this is a common phenomenon—it is terminal heat for wheat. The grain size shrinks, the wheat’s protein and other mineral content goes down. In this situation, if you have a wheat variety that can mature well before temperatures rise, for instance before the March 21, it can really help farmers who grow both rice and wheat [where wheat can be sowed only after rice is harvested].

Very often, the harvesting of wheat extends up to April. So, we need varieties that can tolerate the April heat so that the losses for farmers can be brought down to minimum levels of two to three per cent. Otherwise, losses go up to 30-35 per cent. In simple language, we provide climate-resilient technologies to villages that are suitable to their local conditions, using village-level institutions, not by pouring from the top, which may not percolate down. We formed village-level climate resilience committees with some enthusiastic individuals. Through them, we tried to understand the problems the villages are facing and what solutions could be provided.

This way, local wisdom could also help the programme. We are not providing anything from another planet. We work with what exists locally and we try to reshape it and provide support such as crop varieties, and feed to the local breeds of cattle and fish species. These are simple interventions. The investment is about Rs.40-50 lakh over a period of five years, after which the people themselves can take this forward through the village-level committees. Usually, what we see is that when we withdraw, the intervention stops. This happens in many schemes. But in this case, the committee will take it forward because they have tasted the fruits of success. 

What are some simple climate interventions for cattle?

The number one requirement is shade during the summer season. The shaded areas can be covered with wet cloth such as gunny bags or other cloth. Secondly, we prepared nutritious feed blocks for local breeds, which are provided according to the weight of the cattle. This also reduces enteric fermentation [which releases methane] because we provide the right quantity of nutrition-rich food at the right time and in the right quantity.

In your presentation at the event organised by IWMI and Tata Trust, you mentioned that around 40 per cent of ICAR’s budget goes towards climate-related initiatives. That is a huge proportion. Could you tell us what some of these initiatives are?

The 40 per cent looks like a huge amount but our routine work and research experiments are oriented towards climate change. If you consider the 115 institutes of ICAR which, one way or another, are all working on some aspect of climate research, the total investment comes to almost 40 per cent. The animal sector, fisheries sector, crops and horticulture, nature resource management… together, the research on climate change comes up to 40 per cent.

Agriculture and all allied sectors are affected by climate change. And not only agriculture, take any department in the country and you will see people working on climate change. For us at ICAR, the best achievement is that we now have three per cent more yield in years when rainfall has been deficient by 13-18 per cent. Total productivity did not come down when rainfall was less. This was possible because of the government’s preparedness, the contributions by scientists and, most importantly, because farmers were prepared to adopt new technologies to bring climate resilience to Indian agriculture. 

Rishika Pardikar is an environment reporter based in Bengaluru who covers science, law, and policy.