GS-2: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.
GS-3: Indian Agriculture & challenges associated with it.
Decarbonising Indian agriculture
Context: In 2016, agriculture and livestock emitted 407,821 Gg of CO2e, around 14% of total emissions. Out of this, 61.3% is linked to livestock.
Apart from livestock, the major constituents of agriculture GHG emissions are
rice cultivation (17.5%)
fertiliser application (19.1%)
field burning of agricultural residues (2.2%).
Why decarbonisation of Agriculture is a tricky issue in India?
India, with 1.75 million sq km arable land and a 300 million cattle population has 160 million rural households with agriculture being the main source of livelihood.
Hence, decarbonisation has to be carefully calibrated to avoid an adverse impact to over 120 million marginal farmers who are still in the ‘survival phase’ of their socio-economic development
What pathways can be used for decarbonising agriculture?
Deep decarbonising pathways would include
reducing biogenic methane from cattle and rice cultivation
inculcating resource efficiency by reducing consumption of irrigation water, chemical fertilisers, and energy as well as farm waste processing
reducing waste in the food supply chain
building climate resilience through deploying automation and technology.
The following factors are critical for both decarbonisation and sustainability:
Soil
Fertile soil enhances farm yields and incomes apart from being a carbon sink.
Healthy soil holds more moisture and soil conservation methods reduce erosion.
The co-products of biogas/biofuels plants are compost/bio-char, which enrich soil, mitigate environment pollution, and displace chemical fertilisers
Freshwater
Agriculture consumes over 80% of freshwater in India, making conservation critical.
Micro-irrigation with automation and adoption of low water-intensive species and farming practices is essential.
Areas under water intensive crops must be reduced through crops diversification, examples being oil seeds, pulses, horticulture, and forage crops.
Alternate cropping:
This contributes to GHG mitigation and is an emerging area in climate-smart farming.
For example, seaweed cultivation as additive to cattle feed reduces biogenic methane emissions, improves feed quality, and enhances milk production
Agro-forestry:
Trees act as windbreaks, reduce soil erosion, enrich soil, and filter water.
Studies suggest that 5% increase at 5 yearly intervals to the existing 16 mha area can help mitigate India’s projected emissions.
Bio-energy from farm waste
Manure-based community biogas plants can support clean cooking and distributed power.
India’s National Policy for Biofuels/ SATAT scheme set a medium-term target of 15 million tonnes of bio-CNG.
BECCS (Bio Energy with Carbon Capture & Storage) involves capturing CO2 from bioenergy plants and permanent storage. This will lead to carbon removal as well as negative emissions.
Way Ahead
Sustainable agriculture pathways will require significant capital, but a large portion could come from repurposing existing subsidies.
Climate finance and patient capital will be needed for areas having longer gestation period, viz biogenic methane mitigation, agro-forestry, etc.
Coordinated and action-oriented implementation and appropriate institutional architecture from the Centre to states to districts or agro-zones is needed.
Connecting the dots:
National Mission on Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA) under the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC),
National Initiative on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA)
