ITC focuses on climate-smart agriculture to boost farmer income, cut emissions
Diversified conglomerate ITC Ltd is focused on developing climate-smart agricultural systems to address the environmental and social impacts of climate change and increase farmers’ incomes, enhance the resilience of agricultural value chains, and enable higher productivity while also reducing emissions, according to its annual report. Report (2023).
So far, she says, the climate-smart agriculture program has benefited more than seven farmers, across 23 acres in 17 states. The report said greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from selected crops had fallen by up to 66 percent and farmers’ net returns increased by up to 90 percent from 2016 to 2021.
To provide additional support to farmers dealing with climate risks, 9.5 links have been facilitated through six major government schemes. Its collaboration with the Consultative Group’s “Climate Change and Food Security Program” to build climate-smart villages has been extended to more than 4,800 villages across 11 states, covering 10 acres.
Moreover, as estimated by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, the climate-smart village intervention for ITC in Madhya Pradesh showed an average yield increase of 38 percent in soybean and 15 percent in wheat. The lower cost of farming combined with improved yields increased net income by 93 percent for soybeans and 46 percent for wheat from baseline, and average greenhouse gas emissions decreased by 66 percent and 13 percent for soybeans and wheat, respectively. .
The report said: “The climate-smart agriculture program of the International Trade Center is trying to keep farmers away from the risks of volatile weather phenomena by promoting and adapting climate-smart agriculture on the basis of disseminating a set of relevant practices, adopting appropriate mechanization and providing institutional services.”
She added that assessments in three states show that 70 percent of villages have moved into the high-resilient, high-yielding category, and thus become climate-smart.
The company plans to promote the climate smart village approach in its 3 million acres of core agribusiness catchments by 2030.
climate risk modeling
Sanjeev Puri, CMD, ITC, said recently that the company is looking to perform climate risk modeling to identify hotspots for severe weather, to help tailor mitigation measures to local needs. In 2020, ITC modeled climate risks at the country level on an aggregate basis. The current exercise will be more “accurate” and “location-specific,” Bury said.
The company has hired experts to model climate risks using big data analytics. Climate risk modeling for wood pulp and wheat value chains has been completed and is currently underway for other crops such as potatoes, spices and rice, among others.
“The company is actively working towards protecting its agricultural operations and value chains by utilizing the latest climate risk modeling techniques, and developing site-specific adaptation strategies,” the report said.
Multidimensional measures include the introduction of heat-tolerant cultivars, a crop rotation approach, in-situ and timely planting, an extensive system and furrow, mulching, critical irrigation, and the use of heat-reducing sprays to reduce heat stress, among others.