Agriculture Business Week

Economic diversification
Economic diversification to increase the economic resilience of and to reduce reliance on vulnerable sectors is crucial. Reducing dependence on climate-sensitive resources is an important adaptation strategy that must be promoted. Improved food security through crop diversification. developing local food banks for people and livestock, and improving local food preservation need to be encouraged.

Database of adaptation options
Given the diversity of agro-ecological zones and their inherent problems, it is also essential to assemble, document and disseminate a comprehensive and action-oriented database of adaptation options of different farming and livelihood systems and agro-ecological. zones.

Access to credit and crop insurance
Since farmers are often constrained by access to credit, policies that enable better access to credit (micro-finance) and agricultural inputs in order to intensify integrated production systems need attention. Catastrophic or weather-risk insurance and index insurance (insurance linked to a particular index such as rainfall, humidity, or crop yields rather than actual loss) can be used as new climate risk management tools in developing countries.
Gender diversity
While underscoring the vulnerability of poor women to climate change, policies that cater to the rural poor and recognise the important role of women in agricultural production should be acknowledged. By virtue of the valuable knowledge in water, forest and biodive7sity management that women have acquired over the years, and their important role in supporting households and communities to mitigate and adapt to climate change, their contribution to the identification of appropriate adaptation and disaster mitigation pro- cesses could be very useful. Women’s environmental resources, knowledge and practices can be key elements in climate change processes.

Contributing to value chains
Policies that contribute to value chains in the agricultural sector and smallholder fanner participation in these value chains is fundamental to efforts to deal with climate change.

The CET opportunity
The emerging market for carbon emissions trading (CET) offers new opportunities for farmers 4 benefit from land uses that sequester carbon. Policies that encourage and enhance participation in carbon emission trading schemes must be put in place.

ICRISAT’s ROLE
The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) serves the poor of the semi-arid tropics in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). It recognizes that vulnerable rural communities need to adapt to climate change, beginning with enhancing their ability to cope better with the rainfall variability associated with current climates.

To help farmers in sub-Saharan Africa cope better with climate variability, ICRISAT currently facilitates a NEPAD endorsed consortium for 15 national, regional and international partners titled Investing in rainfed farming systems of sub-Saharan Africa: Evaluating the agricultural implications of current climatic variability and planning for future climate change. ICRISAT is currently partnering with meteorological services, CGIAR centers and climate science specialists in several projects pertaining to climate risk management in Asia and Africa. There are currently 10 such projects taking place in SSA. Equally important is the identification and promotion of crop, soil and water management innovations that do not only optimize the efficiency of use of water stored in the crop root zone, but which also minimize the impacts of both current and future climate-induced risk.

ICRISAT has developed and continues to develop tools and technologies enabling the resource poor to improve livelihoods. It uses sophisticated techniques of predicting and forecasting the monsoons in the context of climate change; enables collective action and rural institutions for agriculture and natural resource management; upscales and outscales its community watershed management model; rehabilitates degraded lands and diversifies livelihood systems for landless and vulnerable groups and initiates government support for water saving options.

Climate-ready crops
ICRISAT already has on hand crops that are adapted to high soil and air temperatures; knowledge and understanding of flowering maturities; information on genetic variation for water use efficiency; short duration varieties that escape terminal drought and high yielding and disease-resistant varieties. For instance, we have developed short-duration chickpea cultivars ICCV 2 (Shweta), ICCC 37 (Kranti) and KAK 2 and short-duration groundnut cultivar ICGV 91114 that escapes terminal drought. We recently developed a super-early pigeon-pea line that flowers in 32 days and matures in about 65-70 days. We have integrated shrubs and trees into traditional annual cropping systems to help reduce the impacts of winds and to protect soils from erosion.

ICRISAT has developed crop varieties that resist pests and pathogens such as downy mildew-resistant pearl millet hybrid HHB 67-Improved in India; wilt-resistant high-yielding pigeon-pea ICEAP 00040 in Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique and rosette-resistant groundnuts in Uganda, to name a few.

Guiding our crop adaptation work are tools such as INSTAT and GENSTAT, MARKSIM and APSIM/ DSAT that analyze climate data and produce high-quality information and products tailored for agricultural applications and to quantify the relationships between climate, crop, soil and water resources.

Since ICRISAT’s mandate crops are already more adapted to heat and high soil temperatures, our breeding strategy factors these harsh and dry conditions while developing improved varieties. What we need to better understand is the physiological mechanism underlying heat tolerance; identify wider gene pools to develop crops with wider adaptability; and develop more effective screening techniques of germplasm for desired traits. ICRISAT’s genebank holds more than 119,000 accessions from 144 countries that will help safeguard and exploit genetic diversity in order to enhance adaptation.

BIOFUEL PRODUCTION
ICRISAT is also responding to the challenges by exploiting the potential of ‘pro-poor’ opportunities for biofuel production. Its BioPower initiative encourages more investments in bioenergy crops and systems to provide a major impetus for sustainable development; empowering the dryland poor to benefit rather than be marginalized, so that farmers can better cope with stresses, climate change or otherwise. The current activities include developing higher-yielding sweet sorghum varieties for food, fuel, feed and fodder; pilot-scaling pro-poor commercial startup company partnerships in sweet sorghum bioethanol production and research-to-development alliances for pro-poor Jatropha plantation development for biodiesel.

To summarize, if developing countries are to contribute meaningfully to efforts toward adaptation and mitigation of climate change impacts, they will need the strengthened capacity that comes with development. A conducive and comprehensive policy environment that enhances opportunities for smallholders given the climate change scenario, needs to encompass all levels – farm, basin, regional, national and global. It must include adaptation and mitigation strategies, more investment in agricultural research and extension, rural infrastructure, and access to markets for small farmers, among other things. The bottom line is to ensure that they develop resilient ecosystems, resilient crops, resilient livestock and resilient communities.

By INTERNATIONAL CROPS RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOR THE SEMI-ARID TROPICS (ICRISAT)