Climate Change and Adaption

with respect to small holder agriculture

Ramanjaneyulu
 Major Reasons
• Increasing costs of cultivation due to Econom
– high input use ic Crisis
– increasing costs of inputs, and lack of access to productive resources
– decreasing subsidies
• Stagnating yields
– Soil fertility going down
– Monoculture of crops
– Crops spreading into areas unsuitable for them Ecologic
al Crisis
• Shift to water intensive crops leading to
– Ground water depletion
– Failure of tubewells
• Decreasing prices
– Lower MSPs
– Increasing price fluctuations after opening up of markets Socio
Political
Crisis
 Climate variability

• Extreme weather events

have become common
– Heat and cold waves
– Prolonged dry spells
– Reduced number of rainy
days
– Heavy downpours
– Irregular rains
 Impacts
• Yield losses, crop losses
– Dry weathers
– Low temperatures
• Human and Livestock deaths
– Heat and cold waves
• Shifts in the pest, pest
incidence, migration and
viability thresholds
– Brown Plant Hopper is 17
times more tolerant to 400 C
than its predator
Cyrtorrhynus lividipennis
– Shift towards sucking pests,
viral diseases
 Concerns
• At this trend, we will not have enough food for all by 2030: may have only 59%
• Climate will change our food production systems and make it more vulnerable:
reduction in productivity, increase in crop failures
• We may not have enough land and water for our agriculture systems : India
already stands at an overshoot of 1.7 times its bio-capacity. With 70 percent of the
surface water polluted and 60 percent of groundwater sources
• The health of soil and water is degrading at a high rate: India is losing 5,334
million tonnes of soil every year due to soil erosion because of indiscriminate and
excess use of fertilisers, insecticides and pesticides over the years. About one
millimetre of top soil is being lost each year due to soil erosion and the rate of loss
is 16.4 tonnes per hectare
• Agriculture is becoming unattractive sector for livelihood: Primary sources of
livelihood and income generation for 22 % and secondary livelihood source of
around 70%. 85% of the farmers in India having less than 2 hectares of land for
farming.
 Farmer Status in India
Item Marginal Farmers Small Big Farmers
Farmers
Land Holding Up to 1 ha 1-2 ha Over 10 ha
Proportion of All Farmers 75% 10% 0.24%
Share of Land Owned 30% 24% 6%
Average Monthly Income Up to Rs. 5247 Rs. 7348 Rs. 41388
Average Monthly Expenditure Up to Rs. 6020 Rs. 6457 Rs. 14447
Average Investment in Up to Rs. 540 Rs. 422 Rs. 6987
Productive Assets
Average Savings/Deficits Up to –Rs.1500 Rs. 469 Rs. 19954

Source: NSSO KI 70/33

 Sustainable Rural Livelihoods (SRL)
framework
• Links between poverty, natural resources
management and rural livelihoods.
• Sustainable livelihood strategies of individuals
and households depend on access, use and
development of five different types of assets
– Natural capital (land, water, biodiversity)
– Physical capital (infrastructure, machinery)
– Human capital (labour, skills)
– Financial capital (savings, disposable assets), and
– Social capital (rights, support systems)
 Agro-ecosystem Framework
• An agro-ecosystem is ‘an ecological and socio-economic system
comprising domesticated plants and/or animals and the people who
husband them, intended for the purpose of producing food, fibre or other
agricultural products’
• Key attributes
– Productivity is the capacity of the system to produce specific outputs to realize
objectives (e.g. yield, profitability)
– Stability is the ability of the system to reproduce processes needed to attain
specified outputs (e.g. input use efficiency). Stability in this sense is derived
from ecology and refers to preservation of the natural resources base. It is
different from the conventional statistical sense (variance) in which it is often
used.
– Resilience is the capability of the system to return to stable equilibrium after
facing shocks or disturbances (e.g. drought, flood, markets).
– Reliability is a measure of the extent to which the system can remain close to
stable equilibrium when facing ‘normal’ perturbations (e.g. yield variability)
– Adaptability refers to the ability of the system to adapt its functioning to an
entirely new set of conditions (e.g. climate change, WTO regime)
 “Slow-onset” impacts of climate change on Indian
agriculture: Some Projections
• 10-40% loss in crop production in India by 2080-2100
• Loss of 4-5 million tonnes in wheat production with every rise of 1oC temperature
throughout the growing period (assuming current land use patterns)
• 2-4 C° temperature rise to decrease rice yields by 0,75 tons/ha. (IFAD)
• Temperature rise bad for maize and sorghum yields, but could be offset by more rains;
however newer studies suggest that with a 2 C° temperature rise, yield loss is unlikely to be
improved even with doubling of rainfall
• Significant and variable increase in rainfall in drought prone regions of Maharashtra (20% to
30%) along with higher temperatures (2.4 C to 3.8 C). As a result, yields of several dryland
crops will rise, including millets such as jowar and bajra, which could boost the incomes of
small rain-fed farmers by about 8-10%
• Sugarcane yields to decline by as much as 30%
• In arid regions of Andhra Pradesh, yields of all major crops – rice, groundnut, and jowar – are
expected to decline, although groundnut is expected to fare better than others
• Increased heat stress to reduce milk production of dairy animals by 10-25%; Increased heat
stress and incidence of disease in animals, depletion of fodder for livestock

Sources: a (Rosenzweig et al., 1994;Fischer et al. 2002; Parry et al. 2004; IPCC 2007b) In NAPCC 2008 or NMSA ; b (Aggarwal,
2008) ; .c (Srivastava et al., 2010) ; d World Bank e INCCA
Intensive Agriculture
Monoculture, Irrigation, Fertilizer and Mechazisation

Source: Government of India, 2009; RBI, 2009.

Heavy dependency on chemical fertilisers
• Total greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from the
manufacturing and transport of fertiliser are estimated at
6.7 kg CO2 equivalent (CO2, nitrous oxide and methane)
per kg N
• 1.25 kg of N2O emitted per 100 kg of Nitrogen applied
• Globally, an average 50% of the nitrogen used in farming
is lost to the environment:
• as N2O to the air as a potent GHG (310 x CO2)
• as nitrate polluting wells, rivers, and oceans
• Volatilization loss 25-33 %
• Leaching loss 20-30 %
 Ponding Rice and GHGs

• Anaerobic conditions lead to

emission of methane (CH4) and
possibly nitrous oxide (N20)
through inefficient fertilizer use.
• Emission of CH4 from rice paddies
in India is estimated at 2.4 to 6 Tg
out of the world total emission of
25.4 to 54 Tg from all sources and
16 to 34 Tg from rice cultivation.
• The average CH4 flux from rice
paddies ranges from 9 to 46 g/m2
over a 120 to 150 day growing
season

Tg (teragram= 1× 1012 g= 1 million metric tons or MMT)

Depleting natural resources

• Increasing dark
zones due to
groundwater
depletion
• Soil degradation and
increasing salinity
 Heavy mechanization and straw burning

Brown cloud formed on October 12, 2002

 Burning Straw is Burning Nutrients
• Punjab uses 12 % of total chemical fertilisers
• 184 kg/ha use (Nitrogen alone accounts for 139.6 is kg/ha)
• 19.6 million tonnes of straw every year (rice and wheat), worth
crores of rupees and losing 38.5 lakh tonnes of organic carbon

Fertilizer quantity Total subsidy Farmers' cost

Burnt nutrients equivalents (tonnes) (Rs. Crore) (Rs. Crore)
59000 tonnes of
Nitrogen Urea 128261 384.78 64.34

DAP 327778 1329.04 318.73

2000 tonees of
Phosphorus DAP 4348 17.63 4.23

SSP 12500 7.00 4.42

34000 tonnes of Potash MoP 56667 106.32 26.25

This is equal to Rs. 800- 2,000 cr nutrients and Rs. 500-1,500 cr of subsidy
 Framework of adaptation
• reduce the risks and vulnerabilities with uncertain weather
conditions and degraded and limited natural resources in these
regions, by adopting suitable cropping patterns and production
practices
• diversify the assets and income sources to sustain the livelihoods by
integrating livestock and horticulture into agriculture and
promoting on-farm and off-farm employment opportunities,
• conserve and efficiently use the available natural resources like soil
and water, and promote biomass generation,
• organise farmers into institutions which can help them to have
better planning, greater control over their production, help to
access resources and support, improve food security and move up
in the value chain,
• build livelihood security systems to cope up with the natural
disasters like drought, floods and other climate uncertainties
 Shifting to Agro-ecological approaches

• All agriculture takes CO2 out of the atmosphere. But, organic

agriculture does it at as much as 3 times the rate of conventional
agriculture.
– Not only does organic agriculture take CO2 out of the atmosphere at a higher
rate than conventional agriculture, but the system releases less CO2 into the
air through the very nature of the process.
– Industry releases CO2 to produce chemical fertilizers and herbicides that
conventional agriculture requires. Since organic agriculture uses neither of
these inputs, the net release of CO2 is much less.
• The 23-year The Rodale Institute Farming Systems Trial® found the
conventional agriculture system sequestered (stored in the soil) just
303 pounds of carbon per soil acre foot.
– the organic agriculture system based on a legume cover crop and diversified
rotation sequestered 594 pounds of carbon per soil acre foot.
– the organic agriculture system based on a manure application and diversified
rotation sequestered 1,019 pounds of carbon per soil acre foot
 Key principles
• Sustainability: Shift towards local resource based
agriculture based on agro ecological principles
• Knowledge intensive: System to create local
knowledge generation and sharing
• Collective ownership: Community organised to
manage their resources, livelihoods and
institutions
• Equitable sharing: Marketing system where
profits are equitably shared.
Agroecological approach
• Managing crop
ecology through Non
Pesticidal
Management
• Integrated Soil and
Moisture
Management
• Suitable Cropping
Systems
• Open Source Seed
Systems
Insitu water harvesting with grid locking, trenches and farm ponds

• 1 mm of rainfall in area gives

10,000 lit of water per ha
• In areas with 500 mm rainfall
the total rain received is 2.0
million lit per acre
• Most of it runs out of the farm
• Leaving 50% to evaporation loss
we can harvest 1.0 million lit
• On farm conservation through
grid locking ridges and furrows
• Trenches to take the excess flow
with locking for every 10 mt
• Farm pond
Agronomic practices-Water harvesting, conservation and use
 26
Changing to multiple cropping systems
Switching over to ecological
27 farming practices
Efforts towards natural resource generation

• Closure of mineral cycles > returning plant nutrients back to

the soil
• Soil fertility should be recognized as the national property and
government should invest in building it. Suitable incentives
should be given to encourage for increasing the soil organic
matter and soil conservation.
• There is a greater need to revive the traditional water
harvesting structures in the drought affected villages These
structures can be revived through the imaginative use of
MNREGA funds and watershed funds.
 Changing crop agronomy
System of Rice Intensification High density plantation in cotton
Integrated farming systems
 What model suits them?
 Maximise space utilisation
 Optimise time utilisation
 Minimise paid out costs
 Reduce risk
 Maximise food production and net incomes

Diversification and Integration as the

key principles

But, unfortunately monocultures of crops with high external input use are
promoted even in areas not suitable increasing the risks and reducing the
incomes.
 Black soils- Vertisols and associated soils

Shallow soil Medium deep soil Deep soil

About 3.0 m ha of rainfed cotton soils are either shallow (< 50 cm or medium deep
(50-75 cm). Is Bt cotton the solution for these soils?
 Building living soils

• Management based on soil type

• Soil as living media
• tank silt application
• Biomass of at least 4 tons/acre
• Promoting Azolla in Paddy on large scale –
Slow release of Nitrogen – reduces
succulence and pest incidence
• Application of dung based inoculants like
panchagavya/jeewamrit
• Research on various dung based products
• Crop diversification including legumes at e
least once in two years
• Mulching and Cover Crops
 Non Pesticidal Management

– Integrating management practices to

prevent insects from reaching damaging
stage / proportion
– a natural ecological balance will ensure
that pests do not reach a critical number
in the field that endangers the yield
– nature can restore such a balance if it is
not meddled with too much, hence no
chemical pesticides at all.
– understanding the insect biology and
crop ecology is important to manage
pests – it is not enough if reactive sprays
are taken up during outbreak.
 Backyard Biotechnology

Using Biomass Botanicals Microbial solutions

Solutions/Extracts • Fermented
• Aqueous or other products
Composts Leaves and other plant • Panchagavya,
Crop residue/ suitable solvent
material • Chilli-garlic extract • Amruthajalam,
animal waste • Jeevamruth
Digested Green mangnuring • Neem extracts
• Insitu
Aerobic: NADEP • Bund plant Decoctions
Anaerobic: Compost, Biogas
• Collection and application• Boiled in water and
filtered
vermicompost • Nux vomica dec
• Tobacco dec
Traps
 Apna Beej
Open Source Seed Systems
• Conserving, revising, using and
marketing traditional seeds
• Cataloguing Value for Conservation and
Use of seed varieties in organic growing
conditions
• Community Seed Banks
• Farmer Producer Organisations engaged
in Seed Production and Marketing
• Participatory Plant Breeding to evolve
Maize and Cotton Hybrids
• Seed Production and Marketing in Paddy,
Soybean, Wheat, Bengal Gram, Red
Gram, Green Gram, Vegetables
• Establishing Open Source Seed Network
Millets for health and diversity
Trees for sustainability
 Sahaja Aharam Producer Company
Processing units Food processing
Farmer Group A Seeds
Bioinputs
Producer Co-op-1
Farmer Group B Producer Co-op-2

Farmer Group C
Consumer Cooperative

Market place
Sahaja Aharam
Direct to
Producer Company
resellers
• Capacity building
• Institutional building Direct to Home
Whole sale to
• Investment support Retail Stores
• Brand building • Healthy food Mobile Store
traders
• Quality Management • Affordable Price
• Fair Trade • Max share to farmers Online Store
Bulk buyers
 •Enebavi Coop
• Adarsha Coop
• BROMACS
• Swayamkrishi PC • Harita Coop
• Kisanmitra coop • Brahmalingeswara Coop
•GreenDunia • Giri Coop

Kallem Boddham
Hub Hub

Dorli Naguladinne
Hub • Tungabhadra Coop
Hub
• Kadiri Coop
• Naisargic Sheti Beej • Palabavi Coop
Producer Company •Rayachoti coop
•Baghyalaxmi coop
• Punnami Coop
• Gayatri Coop
• Mydukuru Coop
 Coverage
• Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra
• No. of Farmers: 5000,
– Organic: 2500 (1000 ICS certified, 1500 PGS certified)
– NPM: 2500
• Cooperatives 30
• 50% of members and management are women
• Two exclusive women cooperatives
– Gayatri women organic farmers cooperative, Vempalli, Kadapa
dist
– Bhagyalaxmi women farmers cooperative, Penugonda, Anantpur
dist
– Supporting FPOs in Telangana, AP, Sikkim and Tripura
 Quality Management and traceability

Certificate no : Q9186414570

PGSI/W(TG)-1276
http://www.Sahajaaharam.in
•Hyderabad
•Tarnaka
•Sainikpuri
•Jeedimetla
•Kharkana
•Gandhinagar
•Vishakapatnam
•Gopalapatnam
•MVP Colony
•Mumbai
• Home delivery

www.sahajaaharam.in
Food Processing
Compost enterprise
Creating Livelihoods
For diversifying incomes and assets
• Developing Livelihoods
Plan
• Building the capacities
• Green Enterprises for
Bioinputs
• Providing linkages Decentralised
cotton
spinning and
Sericulture weaving

Honey Production
Backyard Poultry

Goatary Azolla
SUPPORT SERVICES
Farmer Field Schools
 Kisan Business School
• Participative
designing and
problem solving
• Learning-by–doing
• Arriving at
Interactive and
inclusive solutions
• Season-long
approach
KisanMitra: farmers helpline

08500 98 3300
 Media
Videos Publications

http://www.krishi.tv http://www.csa-india.org/bookshop
farm support services
• CROP
• CooP
• TraceBack
• MANDI
• HIRE
• FINANCE
• AgriWatch
http://www.ekrishi.co.in
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