Mainstreaming Climate Change Adaptation into Development Planning

Agriculture is an important economic activity, providing livelihood to millions of farmers and other workers in the country. Performance of the agricultural sector is crucial, considering its role in income generation, poverty reduction as well as in ensuring food security to ever-growing population of the country which is projected to reach 1.5 billion by 2030. Today the challenge before agriculture is not just about producing enough food to meet the growing demand of the population but sustainability of the system. The sector faces multitude of challenges including the issues of low productivity, degrading resource base, rising cost of production and changing climatic conditions. Climate change is one of the key factors influencing the performance of agriculture given that majority of cultivated land in the country is under rainfed conditions. Changing temperature and rainfall patterns have a drastic effect on agricultural production, affecting the livelihoods of millions of people depending directly or indirectly on agriculture. Climatic variability increases production risks and deters adoption of improved technology. It is high time to emphasize on the adaptation and mitigation strategies among farming communities in order to combat the deleterious effects of climate change. A number of research initiatives have been taken up to address climate change issues in agriculture, yet field level challenges in terms of lack of awareness among the farmers, and barriers to adoption of suitable technology for mitigating and adapting to changing climate are major concerns. Mainstreaming of climate change adaptation strategies with the existing development activities offers potential ways to strengthen the response strategy of farmers to the changing climate. The present policy paper aims at developing a framework and highlighting the opportunities for the same based on field surveys and an extensive review of various ongoing development activities for mainstreaming climate adaptation planning into agricultural development.