As Climate Change makes weather patterns more unpredictable, degrades soil quality, and worsens water stress, Climate-resilient agriculture (CRA) is emerging as a technology-driven approach to sustain productivity while limiting environmental damage.
What is Climate-Resilient Agriculture?
- Climate-resilient agriculture uses biotechnology and complementary technologies to guide farming practices, reduce dependence on chemical inputs, and maintain or improve productivity under climate stress.
- Key Technologies: CRA involves biofertilizers, biopesticides, soil-microbiome analysis, and genome-edited crops tolerant to drought, heat, salinity, and pests.
- Digital Tools (AI-driven analytics): Integrating climatic, soil, and crop data to develop location-specific farming strategies, enabling better decision-making and resource efficiency.
- Biofertilizers: These are natural fertilizers containing living microorganisms that promote plant growth by increasing the availability of nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus, and other trace elements.
- They help improve soil health and reduce the need for synthetic chemical fertilizers.
- Biopesticides: These are biological agents (such as natural predators, pathogens, or biochemicals) used to control pests and diseases.
- They offer an eco-friendly alternative to chemical pesticides and help reduce environmental and human health risks.
- Soil-Microbiome Analysis: This involves studying the microbial community in the soil to better understand the interactions between microorganisms, plants, and the soil environment.
- Genome-Edited Crops: These are crops that have been modified through genetic editing techniques (such as CRISPR) to tolerate specific climate stressors like drought, heat, salinity, and pests.
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Key Strategies of Climate-Resilient Agriculture
- Climate-Adapted Crops: Promoting crop varieties bred for tolerance to heat, salinity, flooding, and drought (e.g., submergence-tolerant rice like Scuba Rice ) to minimise climate-related yield losses.
- Soil Health Management: Adopting no-till farming, cover crops, and organic inputs to reduce erosion, improve soil moisture retention, and enhance soil carbon content.
- Agroforestry Systems: Integrating trees with crops and livestock to provide shade, windbreaks, improved microclimates, and diversified farm outputs.
- Crop Diversification: Shifting away from monocropping towards multiple crops to spread climatic risk and stabilise farm incomes.
- Water Management: Expanding drip and precision irrigation, rainwater harvesting, and micro-irrigation to maximise water-use efficiency under increasing water stress.
- Technology Integration: Leveraging weather forecasts, AI-based advisories, and climate alerts to enable timely sowing, harvesting, and risk mitigation.
Need for CRA in India
- Climate Vulnerability of Agriculture: About 51% of India’s net sown area is rainfed, producing nearly 40% of national food output, making it highly sensitive to climate variability.
- 75% of India’s annual rainfall occurs during the monsoon months, leading to an increase in drought-flood cycles.
- Impact on Crop Yields: Climate models suggest rice yields could decline by 3–22%, and in worst-case scenarios by over 30% by the end of the century, under conventional practices.
- Strategic and Food Security: CRA can reduce India’s dependence on food imports and strengthen strategic autonomy in the food sector while safeguarding environmental health.
- Income Stability: CRA practices, including stress-tolerant crops, shield farmers from income loss caused by extreme weather events and crop failure.
Steps Taken for Climate-Resilient Agriculture in India
- National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA)
- Launched by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research in 2011, demonstrating location-specific practices in 448 climate-resilient villages.
- Demonstrations include system of rice intensification, aerobic rice, direct-seeded rice, zero-till wheat, climate-resilient crop varieties, and in-situ residue management across 448 climate-resilient villages.
- National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture:
- A core component of the National Action Plan on Climate Change, NMSA emphasizes climate adaptation through Rainfed Area Development (RAD), agro-forestry, soil conservation, and integrated farming systems to stabilize farm incomes.
- Soil Health and Organic Farming Initiatives
- The Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY) and the Soil Health Card Scheme aim to restore soil fertility and enhance resilience by promoting organic inputs, balanced nutrient use, and reduced chemical dependence
- Efficient Water Management – Per Drop More Crop
- Under the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY), the “Per Drop More Crop” component promotes micro-irrigation, drip and sprinkler systems, and precision water use, thereby reducing vulnerability to droughts and water scarcity.
- BioE3 Policy: The BioE3 policy identifies CRA as a priority area for biotechnology-led solutions.
- Institutional and Industry Support: Strong scientific capacity exists through ICAR, Department of Biotechnology(DBT) and Indian Agricultural Research Institute(IARI) and a growing private biotechnology ecosystem.
BioE3 Policy
- Launched in 2024, by Department of Biotechnology
- The objective of the BioE3 Policy is to set forth a framework that ensures the adoption of cutting-edge advanced technologies, and aligning innovative research for promoting Biomanufacturing.
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Global Practices
- United States: CRA is integrated into federal policy via the USDA Climate-Smart Agriculture and Forestry initiative, with large-scale public investment.
- European Union: Embedded within the EU Green Deal and Farm to Fork Strategy, focusing on sustainability and reduced chemical inputs.
- China: Emphasises climate-tolerant crop breeding, water-saving irrigation, and agricultural digitalisation.
- Brazil: Leading in tropical climate-resilient crop development, with strong support from EMBRAPA, the state-owned biotechnology research organization.
Key challenges in scaling CRA
- Affordability and Access Constraints: High initial costs of climate-resilient seeds, precision irrigation, and digital tools limit adoption among small and marginal farmers, who constitute the majority of India’s agrarian base.
- Quality concerns in bio-inputs: The proliferation of unregulated and sub-standard bio-fertilisers reduces effectiveness, erodes farmer confidence, and often pushes them back toward chemical-based farming.
- Knowledge and Capacity Gaps: Limited awareness, inadequate extension services, and low digital literacy constrain farmers’ ability to adopt climate-smart practices, interpret advisories, and use AI-based decision-support systems effectively.
- Fragmented Landholdings: Small and fragmented farm sizes reduce economies of scale, making investments in micro-irrigation, mechanisation, and soil management technologies less viable.
- Institutional and Policy Coordination Issues: Weak convergence among agricultural, water, climate, and rural development policies, along with inconsistent implementation at the state and local levels, hampers the scaling of CRA.
- Market and Incentive Limitations: Lack of assured markets, price incentives, and risk-sharing mechanisms for climate-resilient crops and practices discourages farmers from transitioning away from conventional, input-intensive agriculture
3 Jan 2026
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