Dr Suman Sahai who participated in the Inaugural Panel of the 96th Science Congress held in Shillong from 3 to 7 January, 2009, spoke on the likely impact of climate change on agriculture and suggested methods to prepare Indian agriculture to face the uncertainties of climate change. She said that in order to maintain agricultural  productivity, it was crucial to conserve the agrobiodiversity in all fields of agriculture including crops, livestock, soil and water, as also trees and forest species. These genetic resources contain the genes that will be useful for breeding the crops and livestock breeds needed in a warming world .

The session was chaired by Dr MS Swaminathan and Dr R Chidambaram.