Grounding of the Programme

Under the technology demonstration component of National Initiative on Climate Resilient Agriculture, the activities planned as per the technical programme were taken up immediately after the launch of NICRA in February 2011. A framework was finalized for different technological modules and institutional mechanisms to be taken up in different districts and zones to address the climatic vulnerability of agriculture at field level. In that order, 8 workshops were organized to finalize the action plans of 100 NICRA-KVKs during the months of February and March 2011 jointly with the respective Zonal Project Directors in different zones.  The NICRA-action plan for each of the 100 selected districts developed based on village–PRA were critically reviewed by a group of scientists from CRIDA, concerned university and ZPD. In all, 12 KVKs in Zone-I, 15 KVKs in Zone-II, 17 KVKs in Zone-III, 13 KVKs in Zone-IV, 13 KVKs in Zone-V, 7 KVKs in Zone-VI, 14 KVKs in Zone-VII and 9 KVKs in Zone–VIII participated in different workshops. Every KVK was suggested to take up only 4-5 major flagship interventions at large scale to address the climatic vulnerabilities of the selected village.

 

A team of scientists from CRIDA, Hyderabad including Dr. B. Venkateswarlu, Director, CRIDA and Dr. Shalander Kumar, Coordinator, NICRA-Comp-II participated in all the workshops. The workshops were also attended by respective zonal project Directors, Director of Extension of concerned agricultural university, chief scientists of AICRPDA centers falling in the zone, scientists from nearby ICAR institutes, and programme coordinators and SMs from NICRA- KVKs of the zone. The NICRA-action plan for each of the 100 selected districts developed based on village–PRA was critically reviewed by the group to make them focused to address the climatic vulnerabilities of the selected districts. Every KVK was suggested to take up only 4-5 major flagship interventions at large scale to address the climatic vulnerabilities of the selected village.

By July 2011, all the 100 KVKs have purchased most of the approved farm implements to be used for custom hiring in the selected village and about 60 % of the KVKs have organized village level NICRA launch-workshop with participation of line departments, scientists, farmers and peoples’ representatives. For creating awareness and convergence among different stakeholders for climate change adaptation and mitigation. Implementation of interventions as per technical programme is in progress in all the 100 districts.