Climate proofing agriculture in mountain regions!

Faced with global warming and climate change, the yields of rice and wheat are set to decline. It is the traditional grains like millets, which can provide climate resilient harvests and food and nutrition security. According to climate estimates, agriculture in the productive areas of South Asia will be amongst the most adversely affected. The worst brunt of climate change on food production will be borne by farmers in the dry land and mountanious regions where agriculture is rain fed and conditions are marginal. Coping with the impact of climate change on agriculture will require careful management of resources like land, water and biodiversity and improving cultivation practices.

 

Recognizing India’s vulnerability to climate change, the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) has created eight focus areas or ‘missions’. Three of these, the National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture, National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem and the Water Mission underline India’s vulnerabilities and are about initiating measures to secure agriculture and livelihoods in the face of climate change. The Himalayan region is acknowledged to be of special concern where adaptation measures are required urgently and the focus on agriculture admits that we have concerns about food production and food and nutrition security. 

 

Uttarakhand’s State Action Plan on Climate Change (SAPCC) has emphasized the need for adaptive measures in agriculture, livestock and animal husbandry as well as forest and biodiversity. The SAPCC lists the following aspects as priorities in adapting agriculture to climate change: Promotion of sustainable agriculture; soil and water conservation; improvement of soil health; promotion of nutritious traditional grains, pulses and oilseeds; conservation of agrobiodiversity and documentation and conservation of traditional knowledge, among others.

 

Agriculture, which is the mainstay of the people of Uttarakhand remains marginal and highly vulnerable to challenges like climate change. Women who are the principal carriers of agricultural activities are seldom included in programs as main actors, thus excluding their experience and knowledge and rendering them financially weak. They must be made the cornerstone of interventions.

 

Agricultural research specifically targeting Uttarakhand crops has been a neglected area. The most damaging aspect has been the lack of attention to millets and small grains which have been the hardy, climate resilient, nutritious grains that mountain communities were accustomed to eating. It is not a coincidence that the decline of millets in household diets has been accompanied by an alarming rise in malnutrition in women, children and even men in the state. 

 

Faced with climate turbulence, the yields of rice and wheat (particularly the latter) are set to decline. It is the traditional grains like finger and barnyard millets, which can provide climate resilient harvests and food and nutrition security. Millets are highly climate resilient crops. 

 

Being C4 crops, they have higher photosynthetic efficiency than most staple crops and they can produce a reasonable harvest even in marginal soils under water stress. Millet cultivation will increase food production from marginal fields, reintroduce nutritious foods into local diets and very importantly, provide opportunities for income generation by value addition and developing marketable products. Value added millet products have an appeal for the urban market. The current global popularity of traditional grains like quinoa show the growing consumer interest in natural foods originating in traditional societies and very particularly ‘super foods’ that are high in nutrition.

Millets have traditionally been a women’s crop and they have the knowledge and experience of its cultivation. Hence reviving millets provides us an opportunity to support the food production of women and their families. Developing a millet value chain and training women to produce interesting ‘super foods’ for urban markets will create income sources and provide an additional economic incentive to reviving millet cultivation to climate proof their agriculture.

 

Adaptation in Agriculture

Practices in agriculture will need to become mindful of high climate risk and pay attention to resource conservation and careful use. Soil health will need attention, as will rainwater conservation and conservative use of water. Soil management will need to focus on increasing organic matter to improve soil nutrition and water retention capacity, thus increasing crop productivity. Planting hedgerows of leguminous plants is important to fix nitrogen in the soil, prevent soil erosion and conserve soil moisture. Mulching and other types of soil cover is helpful in arresting soil erosion and extending the availability of soil moisture. Mulching has the added benefit of reducing weed populations by up to 60 percent, saving on weeding costs. Contour bunding will be an especially useful intervention in the hill areas to increase water retention in terraced fields.

 

Aligning bunds against topographical contours facilitates the even and controlled distribution of rainwater run-off to the fields below. Contour bunding was a central component in regenerating degraded soils in Burkina Faso and is credited with as much as a 40 percent increase in agricultural production the first year after its implementation. 

 

Using Agromet Forecasts. 

To cope with turbulent weather patterns farmers will need information about altered weather conditions, especially regarding the monsoon. Such information now available from the meteorological department can be conveyed to farmers via mobile telephony, along with advisories on coping with new pest and disease outbreaks.

 

Studies in India have shown the positive effects that access to comprehensible Agromet data has had on smallholder farmers. Farmers trained to use these services reaped higher yields due to timely information on rainfall and weather as well as technical guidance on cultivation aspects, like selecting crop varieties and appropriate application of inputs. Training programs on the use of Agromet data and how to access this will go a long way in helping farmers cope with the turbulence of climate change.