Globally, Rainfed farming is practiced in about 80% of cultivated land and contributes 60% of world food. In India, rainfed agriculture occupy about 50% of net cultivated area, practiced in diverse agro-ecologies and contributes 40% of country's food basket and dominant producer of oilseeds, cotton, jute and allied fibres. In India, contribution of rainfed production to nutritious cereals and pulses is about 84-87%, cotton- 60% and 77% in oilseeds and support 60% of livestock and 40% of human population. Globally, investments for irrigation have not increased leading to predominance of rainfed cultivation specially in African countries. Rainfed agriculture would continue to occupy a prominent place in Indian agriculture for a long time to come in view of its contribution to the food and nutritional security. Despite significant strides made in enhancing irrigated area and irrigation potential, dependence on monsoon rainfall continues to be high for agriculture production in India. Though rainfed area reduced to 46% of net cultivated area in recent years, it continues to attract attention from policy makers and administrators as they experience droughts and floods in same season, extreme rainfall events causing significant losses to farming communities, society and to governments due to their contribution towards production of pulses, oilseeds and nutritious cereals. Spatial and temporal distribution of rainfall is one of the major factors affecting the rainfed production systems in the country. While stability and enhancing cropping intensity is observed in irrigated systems lower cropping intensity and higher risk are prevalent in rainfed systems. Despite the progress made so far, rainfed agriculture in India still encounters multiple risks and constraints relating to biophysical, socio-economic and policy related issues.
Agricultural production, productivity and stability in rainfed areas is being impacted due to changes in the onset of monsoon, improper distribution of rainfall during the season, climate variability, less water holder capacity of soils, dependence on high external inputs such as hybrids, lack of precision technologies for fertilisers based on moisture availability, inadequate capacity of small and marginal farmers, lack of direct policy interventions for promoting rainfed crops etc. Realizing the importance of rainfed production system due to their diversity in production of various commodities of importance, state and national governments and/or civil society organisations are developing and promoting the sustainable practices and encouraging the production of indigenous varieties which are often recognised for their nutritional value and the promising traditional systems which can minimise risk and stabilise production.
The major challenge of rainfed agriculture would be to sustain the livelihoods of the small and marginal farmers and to enhance their income by various means. In the absence of proactive measures, rainfed farming will no longer be attractive and retaining farmers may be difficult. In addition to the traditional problems, of late, climate variability and shrinking land holding size, market driven choices of commercial crops disregarding the available natural resources etc are some of the new threats for rainfed farming. Failure to address these challenges will lead to substantial shift of rural youth to service sector resulting in huge manpower shortage in farming. While there is an enormous opportunity exists in high rainfall regions specially in eastern, parts of central and north eastern region for enhancing the cropping intensity either by effective management of available rainfall through harvesting and reuse or through ground water resources, less endowed regions are the ones which need specific attention. These less endowed regions are the ones significantly contributing to pulses and oilseeds which are very important for a country like India. There is a need to diversify the production of pulses and oilseeds as a second crop in post rainy season either in high rainfall regions or irrigated regions. Preference for growing commercial crops even in less endowed areas is witnessed which often causing pressure on land and water resources and hastening land degradation and contributing to risk. The challenge therefore lies in balancing the land use and cropping pattern as per the resource endowment and also meeting the demand of market forces as well as the national requirements. Some of the challenges like retaining area under the nutritious cereals can be converted into opportunities by creating awareness on the health benefits of these crops and by way of realising higher profits through value addition of processing foods.
Droughts is a major weather aberration observed in India. Every year, some part of the country is witnessing drought. Production deficiencies are also observed though normal rainfall is witnessed which could be attributed to untimely and variable rains. It is not exaggerated to indicate that drought and high intense rainfall lead floods are occurring in the same season specially in western regions of the country. The risk involved in successful cultivation of crops depends on the nature of drought (chronic and contingent); probable duration, intensity and periodicity of occurrence within the season. Inherent constraints such as poor water and nutrient retention capacity, low soil organic matter (SOM), nutrient deficiencies make rainfed agriculture highly vulnerable and less resilient requiring a different outlook and strategy. Besides the three primary nutrients (NPK), deficiency of S and micro nutrients like Zn and B in many of states, and of Fe, Mn and Mo in some states, has become a limiting factor in increasing food productivity.
While climate change impacts are more evident in agriculture sector at micro level in general, rainfed agriculture is the one bearing brunt as it is dependent on monsoon and the likelihood of increased extreme weather events with reduction in number of rainy days due to aberrant behaviour of south-west (SW) monsoon. The aberrations in SW monsoon which include delay in onset, long dry spells and early withdrawal, all of which are impacting the crops and production systems, are likely to further aggravate in future. Technological interventions (e.g. cropping patterns, crop diversification, soil health management, rainwater harvesting, shifts to drought/salt tolerant varieties etc) are some of the interventions which would play a significant role in enhancing the current capacity of rainfed farmers to cope with climate change. Biofortification of rainfed crops, particularly millets, to be the hope for future to ensure nutritional security as most of the tribal people and farm labourers of dryland areas are suffering from protein and micronutrient malnutrition.
Advances in research and the associated technological interventions are being demonstrated through concerted efforts of national agriculture research and education system through ICAR institutions, state agriculture universities, krishi vigyan kendras along with state government departments through various initiatives of federal and state governments.
One of major objectives is to demonstrate in farmers fileds’ and to bridge the gap between research station yields and farmers’ fields in short period of time. While evolving strategies for bridging yield gaps, due attention must be given to regional imbalances in terms of natural resources and technology intake capacity of farmers. Several civil society organizations have been working with communities for a longer period on natural resource management and for conservation of traditional germplasm across India. A meaningful collaboration between all stakeholders including CSOs to promote sustainable technologies in NARES and would bring in much needed transformation in rainfed systems.
While continuous efforts are being made to augment the water supplies through irrigation systems, the approach should be to increase the water use productivity and efficiency by reducing losses associated with utilization of water, to maximize returns from every drop of harvested water and to enhance cropping intensity. Improving soil health through on-farm generation of organic matter, management of crop residues and composting need appropriate policy support. Selecting suitable crops and varieties through systematic analysis of long term weather conditions for different locations, will help increase production of crops and cropping systems, in maintaining soil cover for longer period and also to promote short duration based double cropping systems of millets/ pulses/ oilseeds or combination of them. With location specific technologies developed through centres of AICRP on Dryland Agriculture, technologies like rainwater management, choice of crops, short duration varieties, and other agronomical practices, a greater portion of drylands can be put under intensive cropping systems including relay cropping and double cropping by efficiently using the available resources. Conservation agriculture (CA) is gaining importance as an alternative strategy to sustain agricultural production due to the growing resource degradation problems, particularly under rainfed conditions. CA practices contribute towards saving in time, reduce cost of production and contribute to sustainable intensification in resource endowed areas.
Diversification and/or consolidation of farms and farming activities improve the utilization of labour, realizing better values for the produce by aggregation of farmers through farmer producer organisations and further enhance productivity and profitability. Integrated farming systems (IFS) including agro-forestry increase resilience and support livelihoods through simultaneous production of food, fodder and firewood and can mitigate the impact of climate change. Improved access to the farm machinery for sowing, harvesting etc and other operations is an important adaptation strategy to deal with climatic variability such as late on-set of monsoon, mid-season and terminal droughts and also contributes to timely sowing of post-rainy crops. Custom hiring of agricultural machinery is an important institutional arrangement which can promote mechanization of agricultural operations on small farms.
Extreme weather events such as drought, storms and heat waves have severe effects on agricultural production. The impact of these events on farmer’s livelihood can be reduced if farmers have advance information about the probable occurrence of these events in their geographical locations. Monitoring of weather conditions and advance weather information will be of immense use in planning day to day agricultural operations. Technology transfer is one of the weakest links in rainfed agriculture. Efforts are needed for involving multiple agencies/ organisations to meet the demands of the rainfed agriculture which is quite diverse and challenging. One of the approach is to build the capacity of the community-based organizations and farmers groups so that the knowledge acquisition and transfer processes can go in the hands of the community. There is need for developing early warning systems for climate variability such as drought, floods and other extreme weather events and greater use of ICTs for monitoring and dissemination of information in real time.
The proposed international conference is aimed to bring together the researchers, farmers, NGOs, policy makers to discuss on research outcomes, the successful initiatives made for development of rainfed regions by state, central governments, NGOs etc, latest technological interventions adopted in different states, policy support needed to support rainfed farmers and to enhance farm income. Opportunities emanating to convert rainfed regions as production hubs of nutritious cereals, pulses, oilseeds, diversified land use promotion for mitigation of climate change impacts would be discussed extensively. Proceedings of the conference would be brought out to provide a direction for development of rainfed areas in the years to come with secured livelihoods and enhanced farm income.