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District Level Agriculture Contingency and Drought Proofing Plan for Mitigation and adaptation to climate change

Solution Overview

Submitter: ICAR

The District Agricultural Contingency Plans (DACP) are to be ready reckoners for line departments, and it’s a policy planner containing all information and guidance needed to manage various weather-related contingent situations such as droughts, floods, cyclones, hailstorms, hot weather, frost, etc., not only for agricultural crops but also for animal husbandry and fisheries.  The DACPs are useful for preparedness and real time interventions to reduce losses to farmers due to weather aberrations.

What We Do

Key Features & Benefits

  • RIDA developed a draft template along with guidelines for preparing the district plans in a uniform manner across India.
  • In consultation with all stakeholders representing diverse agro-ecological situations, a contingency template was designed toward district as an implementing unit with several possible contingencies and adaptive strategies based on available technological options.
  • The first part provides information on agricultural profile of the district
  • The second part provides the detailed strategies for weather related contingencies anticipated in crops/cropping systems such as late monsoon; onset of variable duration; inter-droughts; mid-season monsoon breaks resulting in drought both in rainfed or irrigated situations; and adaptive technological strategies for weather related extreme events.
  • The template was then filled at the district level by multidisciplinary teams drawing information from all available sources.
  • The drafts were then sent to the nodal officer of the concerned ICAR institute, and then to CRIDA for scrutiny and vetting.
  • At present, 650 district agriculture contingency plans are prepared and are hosted on ICAR/DAC websites.
  • To make use of plans on near real-time basis, interface meetings are organized with concerned line departments of the State Governments before the commencement of rainy season.
  • It was found that implementation of DACPs helped in reducing agricultural losses due to weather aberrations considerably.

Where It Works and Where It Can Work

  • Though climate change impacts are observed all over the world, developing countries like India and South Asia are more vulnerable in view of high population dependent on farming and low risk bearing capacities.
  • DACPs have been prepared for all the rural districts of India. Similar contingency plans can be prepared for particularly for countries such as Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Vietnam and African countries to better address weather aberrations and enhance adaptation potential of agriculture sector.

Evidence & Impact

The impact of contingency plans implementation in farmers’ fields on crop yields particularly during the years of weather aberrations like drought, seasonal dry spells, floods, etc. has been documented:

  • rinivasarao, Ch., Rao, K.V., Gopinath, K.A., Prasad, Y.G., Arunachalam, A., Ramana, D.B.V., Ravindra Chary, G., Gangaiah, B., Venkateswarlu, B. and Mohapatra, T. 2020. Agriculture contingency plans for managing weather aberrations and extreme climatic events: Development, implementation and impacts in India. Advances in Agronomy 159: 35-91
  • Srinivasarao, Ch., Rao, K.V., Saxena, M.C., 2017. Drought proofing through implementation of district agriculture contingency plans in India. In: Proceedings of Twelfth International Dryland Development Conference “Sustainable Development of Drylands in the Post 2015 World”. Alexandria, Egypt. International Dryland Development Commission. 83–96 p
  • Srinivasarao, Ch., Ravindra-Chary, G., Mishra, P.K., Nagarjuna Kumar, R., Maruthi Sankar, G.R., Venkateswarlu, B., Sikka, A.K., 2013. Real Time Contingency Planning: Initial Experiences From AICRPDA. All India Coordinated Research Project for Dryland Agriculture (AICRPDA), Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture (CRIDA), ICAR, Hyderabad, India. 63 p.
  • During abnormal years characterized by delayed onset of monsoon and seasonal dry spells, short duration and drought tolerant varieties of major crops demonstrated in farmers’ fields across different states revealed that crop yields increased on an average by 25–40% compared to traditional varieties grown by the farmers.
  • Interventions like mulching with crop residues, foliar sprays, in situ moisture conservation, and protective irrigation from harvested rainwater in farm ponds helped in coping with mid-season dry spells and gave 15–40% higher crop yields with additional net returns compared to farmers’ practices.
  • Interventions such as protective irrigation from harvested rainwater in farm ponds and mulching demonstrated to cope with terminal drought in different crops gave 39–55% higher yields compared to farmers’ practices.
  • During dry spells, foliar spray of 2% KCl at flowering stage in rapeseed increased yields by 51% over no spray (499 kg/ha). Similarly, spray of KNO3 (twice) recorded 12–25% higher yields of cotton and soybean compared to no foliar spray.

Scalability & Adoption Support

  • Availability of technologies to address different weather-related disasters from Agriculture research system and indigenous knowledge systems can be used for development of DACPs.
  • Weather related info on major parameters is essential to understand the frequency of weather-related disasters. 
  • ICAR-CRIDA can extend the support for development of plans and other systems.

Contact Information & Partners

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  • Dr VK Singh, Director, directorcrida@gmail.com
  • Dr KV Rao, Head, Division of Resource Management, kv.rao-icar@icar.org.in, mlkv33@yahoo.co.in 
  • Dr KA Gopinath, Pr. Scientist, gopinath.icar@gmail.com
  • Dr JVNS Prasad, Project Coordinator, AICRP on Dryland Agriculture, jasti2008@gmail.com 
  • Dr SK Bal, Project Coordinator, AICP on Agrometeorology, bal_sk@yahoo.com
  • Dr PK Pankaj, Pr. Scientist & Head, PME Cell, dr.pkpankaj@gmail.com

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