Rakhi Solanki1*, Gaurav Singhal2
1 Research Scholar,
Vikrant University, Gwalior, M.P, India
rakhesolankii@gmail.com
2 Associate Professor, School of Humanities and
Culture, Vikrant University, Gwalior, M.P, India
CSA focuses
on promoting the development of context-specific agricultural strategies that will
help in maintaining food security under changing climatic conditions while
conserving natural resources. CSA supports informed decision-making across
multiple levels like—from farmers to policymakers—by identifying locally
appropriate and environmentally sound practices. In the Indo-Gangetic Plains
(IGP), the wheat–rice cropping system has been important in national food
security but this now faces serious sustainability challenges due to various
issues like, declining water resources, degradation of soil, shortages of labour,
and rising energy demands. Based on a critical review of existing literature,
this paper outlines climate-smart strategies for restructuring the wheat–rice
system to improve productivity, resilience, and environmental sustainability in
the IGP.
Keywords:
Climate-Smart
Agriculture, Indo-Gangetic Plains, Sustainability, Greenhouse gas emissions,
Food security
Climate
change has a lot to do with agriculture. It both causes greenhouse gas
emissions and is a sector that is quite sensitive to changes in the weather.
The Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) shows that agriculture and related land-use activities are responsible
for about 20–24 percent of all human-made greenhouse gas emissions. Direct
agricultural operations are responsible for about 13.5 percent of these
emissions. IPCC (2015) says that methane from rice paddies and cattle, nitrogen
oxide from fertilised soils, and emissions from heavy input consumption are
some of the biggest drivers of pollution.
Climate
change is a big danger to food security around the world. Climate-related
problems could put about 49 million more people at risk of starvation by 2020
(IFAD, 2016). Higher temperatures, changes in rainfall patterns, more droughts
and floods, and more severe weather events are all starting to hurt
agricultural productivity. These effects are especially bad in poor nations,
where farming is still the main source of income and people don't have many
ways to adjust.
Climate
change is making it harder for agricultural production systems to work,
especially in areas where small and marginal farmers are the main ones. To
increase production in these situations, we need to move away from traditional,
resource-heavy methods and towards sustainable intensification. Conservation
agriculture is a good strategy to cut down on the environmental impact of
farming while also making farms more profitable. It focusses on keeping soil
disturbance to a minimum, keeping crop residues, diversifying crops, and using
resources wisely.
The energy
industry is the biggest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions, but
agriculture is the second biggest. A large part of these emissions comes from
the digestion of cattle and soils that have been treated with fertiliser.
Evidence indicates that conservation-oriented techniques can concurrently
enhance agricultural yields and diminish emissions, especially in heavily
cultivated areas like the Indo-Gangetic Plains.
To offset
the emissions that come from using more fertiliser, irrigation, and
mechanisation, efforts to boost production through climate-resilient crop types
must be paired with sustainable management methods. Emission mitigation is
frequently assessed by juxtaposing different scenarios with baseline forecasts.
The RCP 2.6 route, for example, wants to keep the amount of CO₂-equivalent
in the atmosphere to 450 ppm by 2100. This gives a good chance of keeping the
temperature rise below 2°C (van Vuuren et al., 2011).
The Food and
Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says that worldwide agricultural production
needs to go up by roughly 60% to fulfil future food needs. Getting to this goal
is hard because natural resources are already stretched thin and climate change
is making things worse. When land use changes, agriculture is responsible for
about a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions. This shows how important it is
to find climate-smart solutions.
Climate-smart
agriculture is a comprehensive framework that combines efforts to adapt to and
reduce climate change with aims for food security. It understands that the best
solutions must be made to fit to the agricultural, ecological, socio-economic,
and organisational situations. CSA wants farmers, academics, legislators,
agribusinesses, and banks to work together to solve the problems that climate
change and sustainable agriculture are causing for each other.
The primary
objectives of CSA are:
1.
Enhancing
agricultural productivity and income in a sustainable manner to ensure
food security and economic stability.
2.
Strengthening
resilience and adaptive capacity of agricultural systems to climate variability and
long-term climatic changes.
3.
Reducing
greenhouse gas emissions
from crops, livestock, and fisheries while maintaining productivity.
The
wheat-rice cultivation system in the region known as the Indo-Gangetic Plains
has been very important for India to be able to feed itself. But growing crops
continuously using traditional methods has caused groundwater depletion, soil
deterioration, difficulty in managing waste, and pollution of the environment.
These problems have led to a halt in yield growth and a drop in land and water
production.
Some of the
biggest problems in the area are less groundwater accessibility soil structural
degradation, more extreme weather occurrences, burning crop residue, and higher
levels of greenhouse gases. To deal with these problems, we need to move
towards climate-smart production systems.
Studies done
by organisations like CIMMYT have shown that managing the rice-wheat system in
a way that protects the environment can make it more productive and profitable.
Studies in Haryana that add green grains to the wheat- rice rotation without
tilling and keeping the residue have demonstrated that the soil is healthier,
the cost of production is cheaper, and greenhouse gas emissions are lower than
with traditional methods.
By planting
short-lived legumes during the time between rice and wheat, you can improve
nutrient cycling and the long-term health of the system. Direct-sown or aerobic
rice can cut methane emissions by a lot when it replaces puddled transplanted
rice. Even though emissions of nitrous oxide may go up, the combined impacts of
keeping residue and less tillage help the soil store more carbon, which leads
to lower net emissions.
Other
benefits include less burning of leftover materials, better soil structure, and
up to 30% less water use than traditional methods.
With water
becoming more scarce, it's important to change the focus from yield per region
to yield per unit of water. Planning irrigation well, using less water, growing
crops that can handle stress, and using low-quality water wisely can all help
farms use their resources more efficiently and make more money.
In
agriculture, mitigation measures include alternative methods of irrigation and
drying in rice farming, making livestock more productive so that emissions for
each hectare of production are lower, and not relying too much on synthetic
inputs. Policy changes that attempt to cut down on waste and damage to the
environment also help to lower emissions.
Climate-smart
agriculture (CSA) is a scientifically sound and practically useful way to deal
with the many problems that agricultural systems within the Indo-Gangetic
Plains face. Since a very long period the wheat-rice cropping system has been
considered the backbone of India's food security in this area. However,
dwindling groundwater resources, worsening soil quality, growing production
costs, and increased susceptibility to climate change are making things harder
for farmers. In these conditions, continuing traditional farming methods that
use a lot of resources is not good for the environment or the economy in the
long run. CSA provides a transformative approach that integrates productivity
in agriculture with climate adaptation and environmentalresponsibility.
This review
shows that using climate-smart methods like conservation tillage, keeping crop
residue, rotating crops more often, adding legumes, and better managing water
and nutrients can make the rice–wheat system much more sustainable. These
methods make the soil better, add more organic carbon, and help people use
energy, water, and nutrients more efficiently. Farmers can now get consistent
or higher yields without having to rely on expensive outside inputs. This is
especially crucial for marginal and small-scale farmers, those who are most
probable to be hurt by changes in the weather and the economy. CSA directly
helps people in rural areas by making farms more profitable and lowering the
hazards of production.
From an
adaptation point of view, CSA makes farming systems more able to deal with the
short-term changes in the weather and also with the long-term changes in the
climate. Direct-sown rice, aerobic rice culture, raised-bed cultivation, and
crop diversification are all ways to make crops less vulnerable to
unpredictable rainfall, water constraints, and a lack of workers. Agricultural
fields can better handle droughts and floods when the soil is healthier and has
more organic content. These adaptation benefits are very important in the
Indo-Gangetic Plains, where extreme weather is happening more often and with
more force.
At the same
time, CSA is important for fighting climate change since it cuts down on the
release of greenhouse gases from farming. Practices like alternate drying and
wetting in rice farming, better use of fertilisers, more effective handling of
crop residues, and better retention of carbon in soils all help minimise
methane and nitrogen oxide emissions. Even though farming can't completely stop
emissions, CSA lets the industry cut its carbon footprint by a lot while still
making food. Because CSA can help people adapt to climate change and also reduce
the effects, it is an important part of meeting national along with global
climate goals.
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