Mr. Gholkar Madhav will present his APS as per the detail:
Date: September 28, 2022
Time: 1700 - 1830 hrs.
Venue: CTARA Conference Room No.1
Topic: A Generalized Approach for Assessing Risk and Resilience of Farming Systems
Guide: Prof. Parmeshwar D. Udmale
RPC Members: Prof. Anand B. Rao, Prof. Bakul Rao, Prof. RAAJ Ramsankaran
Abstract:
Effects of global warming and climate change are being witnessed worldwide, and India is not an exception. Poor and marginal communities are barely surviving with the severe impacts of extreme weather events. Changing climatic conditions pose unprecedented challenges to the agricultural community, and small and marginal farmers, in particular, suffer the most. They are the foremost victims of changing climate, even though they have, at the individual scale, least contributed to the causes leading to climate change. With the realization that climate change is inevitable, it is necessary to mitigate the risks, reduce losses, and enhance the adaptive capacity and resilience of the agricultural community. Marginal and small agricultural holdings in India constitute a vast majority of farms (> 85%); thus, it is imperative to look into how marginal and small operational landholding adapts to the changing climate and identify strategies to enhance their resilience.
Low productivity, a fluctuating market, and erratic weather make farming a high-risk stake; on the other hand, the increasing population demands higher food production. Excessive use of chemical fertilizers and irrigation water has increased yield in the short run but has caused soil degradation and overexploitation of water resources. In addition, the uncontrolled use of agrochemicals is damaging agroecology and causing severe health issues among producers and consumers. As agriculture is impacted by and contributes to climate change, it requires targeted mitigation and adaptation interventions to achieve the resilience of agricultural systems holistically. The resilience of the agriculture production (farming) systems will be strengthened with appropriate mitigation and adaptation actions on the ground. So far, limited studies have focused on assessing the resilience of farming systems by considering the economic and agroecological components. In this background, the proposed research aims to assess/quantify the resilience of the smallholder farmers to hydrometeorological extremes, evaluate their farming practices, measure their adaptive capacities to withstand vulnerable situations, and highlight the potential to contribute to climate change mitigation. The results of the proposed study will encompass current concerns and policy requirements for ecological, social, and economic dimensions of sustainable development of farming systems and facilitate the identification of the most crucial activities that will reduce vulnerability and increase economic and ecological resilience by addressing climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies.