Events

Second Annual Workshop of NICRA was held at IARI, New Delhi during June 17-19, 2013

2nd Annual Workshop of NICRA

The Second Annual Workshop of NICRA was held during 17-19th June, 2013 at IARI, New Delhi.

The workshop was inaugurated by Dr.S.Ayyappan, Secretary, DARE & DG, ICAR at 10.00 h on 17th June, 2013.Nearly 250 delegates participated in the workshop that discussed the progress achieved and priorities for the XII Plan.

Dr.B.Venkateswarlu, Director, CRIDA made a presentation on NICRA outlining the current state of progress and the road ahead in the inaugural session. Prominent among the participants were,

Dr.A.K.Sikka, DDG (NRM); Dr.K.D.Kokate, DDG (Agril.Extn.); Dr.M.M.Pandey, DDG (Engg.); Dr.B.Meenakumari, DDG (Fisheries) and Dr. H.S.Gupta, Director, IARI. Dr.A.K.Singh and Dr.V.S.Tomar, Hon'ble Vice Chancellors of, RVSKVV, Gwalior and

Best Village Climate Risk Management Committees Recognised
Dr S Ayyappan, Secretary, DARE & Director General, ICAR felicitated the chairmen of best Village Climate Risk Management Committees chosen from across the country during the workshop. Chairman of the best performing VCRMC from each of the eight Zones was invited to participate in the 2nd Annual Workshop of NICRA. They were accompanied by the

Programme Coordinator of the respective KVK that is implementing NICRA project. VCRMCs of Pindibalochan village of Faridkot district, Punjab (Zone 1); Majhila village of Nawadah district, Bihar (Zone 2); Udmari village of Dhubri district of Assam( Zone 3); Shahdabbar village of Muzaffarnagar district, Uttar Pradesh (Zone 4); Jalgaon KP Village of Pune district (Zone 5); Khutli village of Valsad district, Guajarat (Zone 6); Sanora & Barodi villages of Datia district, Madhya Pradesh (Zone 7) and Vadavathur village of Namakkal district, Tamilnadu (Zone 8) were adjudged as the best performing ones. The chairmen of these VCRMCs were given away certificated in appreciation of the role played by the committee in promoting climate resilient agricultural practices among farmer of their villages. Hon'ble DG announced an additional grant of Rs 1 lakh each to the 8 villages to take up relevant climate resilient interventions that would help further improve resilience of the farming community against climate variability.

JNKVV, Jabalpur were also present. Nearly 15 publications including books, brochures & CDs were released during the inaugural session. The chairman of best performing VCRMCs were felicitated by Hon'ble DG (see Box). Concurrent technical sessions followed the inaugural session over the next two days in which PIs of NICRA project made detailed presentations on various theme areas viz., natural resource management, crop improvement, technology demonstration, horticulture, livestock, fisheries and socio economic impacts. A special session was held to draw up the XII Plan priorities in which the following areas were identified for focus under strategic research.

Multiple abiotic stress tolerance in crops and horticultural crops
Insect, pest surveillance and pollinators
Carbon sequestration
Water and energy management for adaptation and mitigation
Heat stress management in livestock and spawning in fisheries
Adaptation financing and mainstreaming climate resilient development

Besides, some of the region specific issues such as impact of seasonal rainfall variability on groundwater dynamics in Punjab and Haryana; coping with recurring intense floods on Sali rice in Assam; impact of drought on rainfed rice in Chhattisgarh; drought triggered water shortage for sugarcane in Maharashtra; heavy short term damage transplanted paddy due to cyclonic rains in coastal Andhra Pradesh; chilling constraints for temperate horticulture in J&K, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand and water deficit at farm/sub basin levels in Tamilnadu during drought years were also flagged.

Under the technology demonstration component, it was proposed to build on the experience gained so far with special emphasis on convergence at village/block level for horizontal spread of the successful experiences. A climate knowledge management web portal was also proposed for documentation and dissemination processes.

National Symposium on Climate Change and Indian Agriculture: Slicing down the Uncertainties was held on 22-23 January, 2013 at CRIDA, Hyderabad

NICRA Highlighted in National KVK Seminar

Training to KVK's Staff on use of AWS and Agro Advisory at CRIDA, Hyderabad

Training to KVK's Staff on use of AWS and Agro Advisory at CRIDA, Hyderabad

Dear Colleagues,

As you are aware, for most of the KVKs involved in NICRA, one automatic weather station has been provided along with two contractual staff for implementation of the programme. So far the programme is progressing quite well and in the recently held high level review meeting in Delhi, the DG, ICAR has appreciated the contribution of all NICRA-KVKs in excellent implementation of the project.

The monsoon during this year has been delayed and behaving quite erratically in several parts of the country causing difficulties to farmers. To meet such weather aberrations only, it was planned in NICRA to take up contingency crop planning whenever required. To achieve this, timely dissemination of information to farmers is critical. In this context, the contingency plans for most of the districts in the country have been prepared by CRIDA and many of you might have already received these documents. In order to operationalize these plans at field level by providing technical support by the KVK, it has been decided to organize a training programme to the KVK staff involved in NICRA to analyze the historical weather data, using current weather outputs from automatic weather stations and get hands on exposure on formulation and dissemination of agro-advisories during weather aberrations.

You are requested to depute one scientist and one RA/SRF to attend the programme. The scientist/RA/SRF may be the one already associated with NICRA project at your KVK and who was operating the automatic weather station. Also advise the scientist/RA/SRF to bring meteorological data from past records, if available which will be used by him/her for analysis during the training.

The TA/DA for the training may be met from the NICRA project operating at your KVK. You may send your travel plans to Dr.VUM Rao, Project Coordinator (Agromet), CRIDA, Hyderabad (Mobile-9441232830 and e-mail Id: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ). Please feel free to contact Dr. Rao for any further clarifications.

Training Date	State	Zone
September 14-15	AP, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu & Kerala	Zone 5 & 8
September 17-18	Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh & Orissa	Zone 6 & 7
September 20-21	HP, Punjab, J & K, UP, Uttarakhand & Haryana	Zone 1 & 4
September 24-25	North Eastern States, Bihar, WB, Jharkhand and A & N Islands	Zone 2 & 3

With kind regards,
Dr.B.Venkateswarlu, Director
Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture,
Santoshnagar, Hyderabad, India 500059
Telefax: +91 40 24535336
phone: 040-24530177 (o)

Third meeting of High Level Monitoring Committee of NICRA on (05- July-2012)

Third meeting of High Level Monitoring Committee of NICRA on 05- July-2012)

The third meeting of High Level Monitoring Committee of National Initiative on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) was held at NASC Complex, New Delhi on 05^th July, 2012 to review the progress of the project. The meeting was chaired by Dr S. Ayyappan, Secretary (DARE) and Director General (ICAR). Dr JC Dagar, ADG (Agronomy/Agroforestry), ICAR and Member-Secretary presented the Action Taken Report on the proceedings of the second meeting of HLMC held on 12-13 th December ,2011 at New Delhi. Dr AK Singh, DDG (NRM) and co chair of the meeting welcomed the participants and explained about the progress made under infrastructure development and network research programmes. He emphasized about the Technology Demonstration (TD) component and role of KVKs in the present context of climate change. Dr S Ayyappan, DG (ICAR) emphasized the significance of NICRA project in ICAR in the present climate change context which is evident in terms of drought and late onset of monsoon. He explained about the role of electronic media for quick dissemination of climate coping technologies to farmers. The role of CRIDA as lead centre of NICRA was well appreciated. Dr B. Venkateswarlu, Director, CRIDA made a presentation on progress of the NICRA project under various theme areas encompassing crops, adaptation and mitigation, fisheries, livestock ec.,during 2010-2012.Several programme implementation issues involved were discussed. EFC of XII plan of NICRA and various priority areas were also presented. Drs M Maheswari and S Dixit provided further details on the strategic research and technology demonstration components. Several suggestions and inputs were received from all DDGs and external experts on future programme and strategies

Review of progress of “Pest Dynamics in relation to Climate Change at NCIPM by CRIDA on 04-July-2012

Finalization of technical programme of NICRA in XII plan for CAZRI and PDFSR institutes on 04-July-2012

A Review of Animal Husbandry sub projects of NICRA on 03-July-2012

Annual Workshop of NICRA Research Programs reviews was held on 12-06-2012 at CRIDA, Hyderabad

First Annual Workshop of NICRA Organized

First Annual Workshop of NICRA Organized

The first Annual Workshop of the National Initiative on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) was organized at CRIDA, Hyderabad during 12-14 June 2012. The Workshop was attended by nearly 200 scientists from NARS system, other universities, IITs and NGOs who are all partnering in different components of the Project. All the projects under strategic research, sponsored and competitive grant components were reviewed for the work carried out during 2011-12 and the action plan for 2012-13 and the approach for XII Plan were finalized. Dr.A.K.Singh, Deputy Director General (NRM), ICAR; Dr.Y.P.Abrol, Chair of the Expert Committee and Dr.B.Venkateswarlu, Director, CRIDA have participated in the inaugural session on 12th June 2012. The workshop was organized in 5 technical sessions covering the themes of (i) vulnerability and impact assessments. (ii) adaptation and mitigation through natural resources management, (iii) crop improvement for multiple abiotic stresses, (iv) pest and disease dynamics under changing climate and impact on pollinators (v) adaptation strategies in livestock and fisheries.

The project made good progress in one year as evidenced by the identification of good number of promising germplasm in different crops, like rice, wheat and pulses which retained reproductive performance at extremely low and high temperatures, strong evidence on the usefulness of on-farm water harvesting in adaptation of rainfed agriculture, further insights into the strategies for reducing emissions in paddy and identification of low carbon technologies for irrigated and rainfed production systems. The second component of the project, i.e. technology demonstration in 100 vulnerable districts will be reviewed separately through the zonal workshops. The action plan document of this component and the research highlights of the Project for 2010-12 were released on the occasion. Other publications and CDs released are all available on NICRA website.

The major recommendations emerged from the workshop are:

Organize thematic workshops to bring more clarity among all the participating scientists on the technical program.
The major goal of the project is to reduce losses at the farm level when a climatic event like droughts, floods, cyclone and frost occur.
The focus is more on developing and testing technologies and practices which help farmers to cope with current climate variability, while we continue to assess the long term impacts of climate change which will be addressed through policy initiatives.
Manuals on various thematic activities like carbon sequestration, conservation agriculture, use of bio char, measurement of GHGs and germplasm screening for multiple stresses will be brought out so that all the participating scientists collect the minimum data set and the experimental data will be comparable across crops and locations.
Clear guidelines will be prepared by the core institutes to work out water, carbon and energy footprints of the interventions/practices being adopted in the project.
Quarterly review and monitoring of the technical and financial progress will be made by the lead center.
CRIDA as the lead center will make efforts to provide climatic data for the country in a form usable by all partners. For this, a separate section in the NICRA website as "Tools and Services" will be developed.
In some partner institutes where the technical program needs further strengthening, the lead center will organize institute wise meetings and develop a clear work plan for 2012-13.

Events

2nd Annual Workshop of NICRA

NICRA Highlighted in National KVK Seminar

KVKs

Training to KVK's Staff on use of AWS and Agro Advisory at CRIDA, Hyderabad

First Annual Workshop of NICRA Organized