National Initiative on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA)

October 24, 2012 February 4, 2024

The heat resistant or heat tolerant crops are those crops which can survive the rising temperature / drought due to climatic changes. The growing population is demanding more food, fibre, fuel and other renewable products from agriculture. But recent events like cold wave, heat wave, drought, and floods has demonstrated the significant potential of climatic factors to influence the agricultural production, eventually leading to shortages of food grains and increased prices.

NICRA

National Initiative on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) was launched during February 2011by Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) with the funding from Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India with Central Research Institute for Dry land Agriculture (CRIDA), Hyderabad as the lead centre and CIAE Bhopal as one of core institutes. The mega project has three major objectives of strategic research, technology demonstrations and capacity building.

Scope of NICRA

NICRA is aimed at making the farmers self reliant by use of climate resilient agricultural technologies and management of natural and manmade resources for sustaining agriculture in the era of climate change empowered by four modules of NICRA – natural resource management, improving soil health, crop production and livestock. Scope also covers specific environment assessment and generating meaningful products from crop residues with different energy conversion process. Review and documentation of conservation methods of agriculture in order to reduce GHG emissions and other measures also stands inside its ambit.

Objectives:

To enhance the resilience of Indian agriculture covering crops, livestock and fisheries to climatic variability and climate change through development and application of improved production and risk management technologies.
To demonstrate site specific technology packages on farmers’ fields for adapting to current climate risks.
To enhance the capacity of scientists and other stakeholders in climate resilient agricultural research and its application.
To asses, install, screen, evaluate, document and create an understanding for mutually conclusive ideas and benefit sharing across different crop zones and types.
Simultaneous up-scaling of the outputs both through KVKs and the National Mission on Sustainable Agriculture for wider adoption by the farmers

Features:

Critical assessment of different crops/zones in the country for vulnerability to climate.
Installation of the state-of-the-art equipment for measurement and impact understanding of green house gases contribute data on emissions as national responsibility.
Wide screening of crop germplasm including drought and heat tolerance for quick identification of promising lines and early development and release of heat/drought tolerant varieties.
Comprehensive field evaluation of new and emerging approaches of paddy cultivation for their contribution to reduce the GHG emissions and water saving.
Special attention to livestock, fishery including aquaculture and the documentation of adaptive traits in indigenous breeds.
Thorough understanding of crop-pest/pathogen relationship and emergence of new biotypes due to climate change.
Simultaneous up-scaling of the outputs both through KVKs and the National Mission on Sustainable Agriculture for wider adoption by the farmers.