Developing Resilience
I
to Climate Change By PAROMITA PAIN
A project funded by USAID / India promotes climate-smart agricultural practices and technologies to build a sustainable food production system.
Right: Delegates from Nepal visit a climate-smart village in the Mathura district of Uttar Pradesh. Center right: Farmers’ Field Day at Betul, Madhya Pradesh. Far right: A woman farmer uses a battery-operated cutter at Dasturpar village in Bihar.
36 MAY/JUNE 2021
ncreasing extreme weather events like storms, floods and droughts are a threat to agricultural production and food security across the world. It is, thus, important to minimize these effects of climate change to maintain agricultural growth and build a resilient food production system. To address these vulnerabilities of farming operations, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) India funded the “Scaling-up Resilient Agricultural Practices, Technologies and Services in the Vulnerable Areas of India” project. The project adopted the “approach of developing climatesmart villages, which are villages where farmers, researchers, private sector representatives and policymakers have selected and trialled a portfolio of technologies and interventions to promote climate-smart agriculture,” says Vamsidhar Reddy, development assistance specialist at USAID / India.
The project, which concluded in September 2020, was implemented in Nalanda in Bihar, Betul in Madhya Pradesh and Mathura in Uttar Pradesh, as an intervention by CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), South Asia; the Borlaug Institute for South Asia and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center. Through the initiative, “a range of resilient technologies, services and practices were designed in consonance with scientific knowledge and local needs that directly targeted the network of crop and livestock activities,” says Reddy. “Traditional agricultural practices are more focused on productivity,” he explains, “while climate-smart agriculture maintains a balance between productivity and sustainability and is integrated with its allied sectors.”
