Impact of Climate Resilient Agriculture Practices: An experience from the marginal farmers of Bihar

Climate-resilient agriculture (CRA) is an approach that includes sustainable use of existing natural resources through crop and livestock production systems and achieve long-term higher productivity and farm income even under climate variabilities. The Climate Resilient Agriculture (CRA) programme was conducted by Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Vaishali in ive villages of Bihar, India. A survey conducted revealed that after the introduction and three years of continuation of the programme, maximum number of respondents (58.88%) were found to be in the category of higher adoption for CRA technologies due to the assured bene its in economic terms as well as for soil conservation and environmental protection and has made more and more farmers to adopt those technologies. Demonstrations were conducted in 595 acres in kharif season and 623 acres in rabi season. The B:C ratio of all kharif crops were higher with CRA technology application (2.51 for paddy, 2.52 for maize. 1.58 for pearl millet and 1.28 for sorghum) as compared to conventional practices (1.92 for paddy, 2.11 for maize. 1.25 for pearl millet and 1.10 for sorghum). Crops demonstrated in rabi season also showed that both the yield and B:C ratio (2.23 for wheat, 3.5 for lentil, 2.9 for chickpea, 2.13 for mustard and 2.2 for rabi maize) were higher with the application of CRA technologies as compared to traditional ones (1.8 for wheat, 2.5 for lentil, 1.3 for chickpea, 1.73 for mustard and 1.68 for rabi maize). This programme has open many new climate resilient options for the farmers to adopt in this scenario of changing climatic conditions. The climate resilient agriculture (CRA) technologies have been very successful especially in rabi crops and increases the net pro it of farmers by cutting down the cost of cultivation. However, the major challenges faced in the implementation of the programme was to convince farmers to come out from their traditional method of crop cultivation and adopt our technologies in the initial stages which were later reduced when the results started showing the impact.