'ICRISAT's innovations to help farmers adapt to climate change'

Hyderabad, Apr 21 : Stressing the need for resilience on the part of dryland farmers in dealing with global warming, ICRISAT Director General William Dar said ICRISAT has proven innovations in crop, soil and water management that can help farmers better adapt to climate change.

''The world is now locked into the inevitable changes of climate patterns, and however uncertain those changes might be, farmers must eventually adapt to them,'' he said in a statement on the eve of the World Earth Day.

In an effort to brace a confluence of crises involving climate change, food security, energy crisis, poverty and population explosion, ICRISAT scientists have been developing farming systems resilient to shocks, buffering crucial resources like water and nutrients and adapting crops to warmer temperatures and new pest patterns.

ICRISAT has developed the highly-productive, low pressure drip irrigation system called the 'African Market Garden' (AMG), which provides a radical alternative for reducing poverty and improving nutrition in the Sahel region of Africa.

ICRISAT's repository of genes of dryland crops that are well adapted to changes in climatic regimes.

''Conservation is a way of life in ICRISAT...Earth Day reminds us that the scars left on the earth by unmindful exploitation have to be healed. By working in the most degraded environment of the world, ICRISAT is committed to do just the same,'' Dr Dar added.

Using climate and crop growth models to forecast the impacts of global warming on food production in the semi-arid tropics in several countries in sub-Saharan Africa and India, ICRISAT scientists found that improved use of fertilizer and harnessing rainwater would increase food production even if the climate changes for the worse.