Regional meet calls for climate smart farmers

Kathmandu, Dec. 11: Member of the National Planning Commission (NPC) Dr. Prabhu Budhathoki has said that introduction of climate smart technologies and efficient coordination among the stakeholders were needed to facilitate the farmers to cope with the growing challenges posed by climate change.

"We need to adopt more farmer-centric approaches and solution-based strategies to ensure food security with growth in agricultural yield," he said while addressing a three-day South Asia regional media workshop on 'Climate resilience in South Asian agriculture and food security – media perspective' here on Monday.

He was of the view that climate change could be managed by harnessing technology and international coordination.

"Variation in climate and weather has multifaceted effects on agriculture. Almost every Nepali household has experienced climatic disasters at least once in the past 25 years. And, half of the districts in the country are reeling under food deficit," he stated.

Programme Leader of Research Programme on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) Prof. Pramod Agrawal suggested increasing the use of information and communication technology (ICT) and weather-based agro-advisories to enable the farmers to make timely and effective decisions.

He recommended the promotion of crop insurance to promote commercial agriculture.

He also asked absorbing the 10-20 per cent inaccuracy loss in insurance rather than asking the farmers to bear the cost.

"Design of new insurance products targeting specific needs of the farmers is needed. At the same time, it should have a fast processing, immediate mobile notification system and bank transfers," said Prof. Agrawal.

According to Arun Khatri-Chhetri, a science Officer at the CCFAS, weather, water, seed/breed, carbon/nutrient and institution/market smart are the building blocks of climate smart villages.

The government is piloting the climate smart village at five different locations across the country.

The workshop is organised by the CCAFS in support of the CIMMYT, Local Initiative for Biodiversity Research and Development (LI-BIRD) and Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA), and is attended by journalists and agricultural scientists from Nepal, India and Bangladesh.