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Contact : Dr Suman Sahai
email : mail@genecampaign.org
24 April,
2010
National conference on Climate Change and Food Security
A National Conference on “Ensuring Food Security in a
Changing Climate” was organized by Gene Campaign
and Action Aid at the Constitution Club, New Delhi on
23rd and 24th April, 2010. A range of
speakers representing the scientific community, the
government, academics, international organizations and civil
society groups working on agriculture and environment spoke
about the various issues involved in ensuring food security in
a changing climate. The conference was attended by
participants from 22 states including ,Uttaranchal, Bihar, UP,
Jharkhand, Orissa, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Haryana, Punjab, MP,
Gujarat, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Assam
The conference was inaugurated by men and women farmers from
Jharkhand, Uttarakhand Bundelkhand, Rajasthan and Sunderbans,
who explained the impact of climate change on their
agriculture and livelihoods; how it is disturbing their
farming practices, their crop patterns and their livestock and
making it even more difficult than it already is to feed their
families and earn a livelihood.
After the inauguration, Mr. Sandeep Chachra of Action Aid
welcomed the participants and the speakers. Dr. Suman Sahai
(Gene Campaign) then set the tone of the conference giving
data on anticipated climate turbulence relating to rainfall ,
sea level rise and impact on coastal agriculture as also the
shortage of fresh water for agriculture. Dr Sahai said the
injustice of the climate change impacts is tha those who have
created climate change will be its beneficiaries since their
cold areas will become suitable for agriculture while the 2
and 3 crop zones of India and Asia could become 1 crop zones
due to high temperature, aridity , leading to crop losses.
Dr. S. Ayyappan, Director General of the Indian Council of
Agricultural Research, a fisheries expert explained explained
how marine fish, the inland water fishes and the coastal reefs
were suffering the impact of climate change. He said that due
to the rise in the sea surface temperature, the breeding
ground and the spawning seasons have changed.
Dr. P. K. Aggarwal, Coordinator, National Network on Climate
Change and ICAR National Professor gave an overview on the
research that was being done in the Indian Agricultural system
to adapt to climate change. He explained the projected impacts
of climate change on South Asian agriculture. He stated that
the production variability will increase as time goes by due
to the frequent occurrence of floods and droughts and
therefore there was great need to work on developing
adaptation strategies.
Dr. Suman Sahai, Gene Campaign explained how agro biodiversity
(i.e. genetic bio-diversity) of crop plants, livestock, fish
stock gives the species the ability to adapt to changing
climate and combat biotic and abiotic stress like pests and
diseases. She said that genetic diversity helps to distribute
the risk of climate change and maintain if not increase the
productivity of crops.
Dr. M.R. Garg, Senior Scientist, National Dairy Development
Board, Anand discussed the impact of climate change on
livestock. He said that the increase in temperature has led to
a reduction in the reproduction efficiency of diary animals.
He explained how indigenous breeds of livestock are performing
better than cross bred cattle and are better able to withstand
the impact of climate change than cross bred cattle.
A set of
recommendations were agreed upon after the discussions. These
recommendations are being forwarded to the Prime Minister Sri
Manmohan Singh, the Agriculture Minister Sri Sharad Pawar and
other Ministers of the Union Cabinet.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Climate
Change- Mitigation and Adaptation in Agriculture.
1.
Assist farmers in coping with current climatic risks by
providing value-added weather services to farmers and
community banks for seed and fodder.
2.
Provide greater coverage of weather linked
agriculture-insurance.
3.
Provide incentives to farmers for resource conservation
and use efficiency by providing credit to the farmers for
transition to adaptation technologies.
4.
Provide technical, institutional and financial support
for establishment of community banks of food, forage and seed.
5.
Provide more funds to strengthen research for enhancing
adaptation and mitigation capacity of agriculture.
6.
Intensify the food production system by improving the
technology and input delivery system.
7.
Shift to biogas technology for the mitigation of green
house gases which will have a mitigation potential of 512 Mt
of Carbon Dioxide.
8.
Adopt resource conservation technologies such as
no-tillage, laser land leveling, direct seeding of rice and
crop diversification which will help in reducing in the global
warming potential.
9.
Develop a long-term land use plan for ensuring food
security and climatic resilience
Adaptation to Ensure Food Security
10.
Breed improvement programme for the indigenous breed
and the pedigree selection programme need to be initiated.
11.
There is a need to implement the Ration balancing
programme through which it is possible to increase milk
productivity and reduce the cost of milk programme.
12.
Propogate those fodder varieties which are able to
withstand high ambient temperatures.
13.
There is a need to realize the full potential of
technologies (developed by the CSSRI for the sodic soils of
the indo-gangetic plains and for the deep black soils with
subsoil sodicity by ICRISAT, Patancheru) and to adapt them on
a large scale.
14.
There is a need to implement and communicate early
weather detection systems of weather events.
15.
There is a need to reverse the subsidy policy followed
by the government and provide subsidies to the farmers who
rely on indigenous source of farming rather than chemical
fertilizers.
16.
Provide a market for the local produce (such as the
mid-day meals) and it will help in reducing the pressure on
the food producing regions.
Experiences of local communities with Climate Change
17.
Affirm and protect the role and contribution of
traditional communities.
18.
Empower the local communities by allowing them to make
decisions on agriculture, water resources and biodiversity.
19.
There is a need to recognize and strengthen the role of
women.
20.
There is a need for formal recognition of the rights of
the pastoral people who are playing an important role in
maintain the ecological balance. There is also a need to
provide them with specific infrastructural support.
Coping
with Climate Change impacts
21.
There is a need to identify economically important
insect pests and pathogens at the national level that are most
sensitive to temperature, moisture and Carbon dioxide regimes.
22.
There is need to focus research on the integrated pest
management.
23.
Need for generation of data on epidemiology for
predicting pest development in the context of climate change
and also to conduct a regular survey to map the distribution
of pests and to identify the new pests.
24.
There is a need to develop a ‘micro scale’
understanding of the problem of groundwater management and to
also develop local databases rather than regional databases.
25.
Need for a Demand Resource Management with respect to
the ground water supply in order to ensure that there is a
balance between the demand and supply of green water.
26.
There is a need to re-strategise and re-think the
recharge policy of groundwater keeping in mind the variability
of ground water supply across the country.
27.
Promote the development of wasteland and water resource
management.
Dr. Suman
Sahai
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