Climate Smart Agriculture practices: A way to environment adaptation and enhance livelihoods of small holders in Eastern India

Abstract

Forestry support livelihood of a large section of India’s population, despite its steady declining share in the Gross Domestic Production (GDP). Interaction of several factors in the global climate change scenario has markedly limited the capability of forest resources and thereby threatened livelihood of small holders throughout the world. Factors like deforestation; degradation, energy crisis, climate change and continuous rise of input cost of farming create threats to the livelihood of millions and it has become imperative to collectively understand the complexities and challenges in forestry conservation and management. Therefore, promoting sustainable livelihoods is one of the most challenging tasks for the country’s development endeavor and climate adaptation strategies to improve livelihoods, sequester carbon and reduce greenhouse gas emission in the agricultural sector are required while tradeoffs are to be made seeking to reach different development goals, such as climate change adaptation, mitigation, sustainable agricultural production and poverty reduction. Recently, Climate Smart Agriculture, a sustainable tool on conservation agriculture is developed by FAO, primarily based on five important principles, such as minimizing soil disturbance, maintaining land/ soil cover, conservation of natural resources, low emission agriculture and ensured agriculture productivity despite climate change. A project is implemented in Odisha, situated in eastern India since 2009 to improve the livelihoods of small holders on conservation agriculture practices through tree based SMART agriculture in a tropical sub-humid grid. Climate mitigation practices were made by plantations in six agroforestry models suitable to agroecology and community need. About, 1,91,870 trees were planted covering 15.83% of the grid area and due to such mitigation practices, 11,114.04 tCER of carbon may sequester, which possibly add each small holder to realize revenue of Rs.19, 607.00 per year. Further, gender participation by sensitizing 870 farm women have been created for sustainability and tenure security of the program. So, this tree based climate smart agriculture practice increased productivity, resilient to climate, reduce/removes GHGs and enhance food security and incomes of small holders who are most vulnerable to climate change effects