District-specific contingency plan for agriculture on anvil

  • 25/06/2010

  • Financial Express (New Delhi)

Sandip Das New Delhi: As Indian agriculture gets more and more impacted by changing weather patterns, which has become more acute in the last few years because of climate change, the ministry of agriculture through the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) and state agricultural universities are working on district-specific contingency plan for the agriculture and allied sectors, which includes fisheries, animal husbandry and dairy farming. Since its start in March 2010 under the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, the draft manual for 89, out of the total 600 odd districts, in the country have been prepared and submitted for validation by experts. The comprehensive district-specific document would give details on the crops and cultivation practices to be adopted in case of deficient or delay in monsoon, unseasonal rains, frosts or unusually high temperature excessive rains etc.