Shaping India’s agricultural legacy for next 25 years

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climate change, the intermittent cycles of heat and drought on one hand and heavy rains and floods on the other. These extreme weather patterns result in either water scarcity or water surplus and in both cases lead to a decline in cultivable land and crop production. The situation calls for urgent risk-mitigation strategies such as climate-resilient sustainable farming systems, especially in vulnerable regions.

This will certainly help farmers cope with the adverse impact of climate change. A recent Niti Aayog vision document calls for a paradigm shift in agriculture and charts a path to making India a developed nation by 2047. It addresses four priority areas, among others, which will help farmers overcome challenges and explore emerging opportunities in sustainable and inclusive agri food systems.

This will, in turn, shape India’s agricultural legacy for the next 25 years – the end of which will mark 100 years of Independence – thus achieving the goals set for Amrit Kaal, or Golden Era. India’s winning proposal to declare 2023 as the International Year of Millets is aimed at strengthening domestic and global food security and nutrition. However, this goal can succeed only if the growth rate of food production surpasses that of human population.

Now that India is a food-surplus nation, it is perhaps time to emphasise on nutritive and healthy foods, as well as biofortification, the process of improving the nutritional quality of food crops. With unpredictable weather conditions rendering farmers more vulnerable to crop and income losses, we need to tackle climate change on a war footing. India must provide farmers with cheap finance and skill training so that they can adopt climate-friendly technologies that will help