India is losing at least 1.5 per cent of its GDP annually as a direct consequence of extreme weather events, according to Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu.

Quoting experts, he said climate change will impact agricultural productivity with increasing severity from 2020 to the end of the century. The Centre is working with farmers to increase awareness by training knowledge intermediaries at the grassroots, lhe added.

Interacting with farm scientists and management specialists at the MANAGE (National Centre for Management of Agricultural Extension) here, Naidu said: “Working with farmers to increase awareness on climate change is crucial to bring about changes in age-old practices.” He asked MANAGE to take up a key role in training on “Extension for climate smart agriculture’.

The Vice-President also wanted institutions like MANAGE to educate the farmers on the need to diversify crops to overcome challenges of climate change. Stressing the importance of extension officials and researchers spending time in the fields, he said it should be made mandatory for agricultural graduates and post-graduates to spend time with farmers.

The agrarian crisis, he said, is mainly due to high cost of inputs, small and tenant farmers, production loss, instability in yields, low prices, climate change, droughts, rainfed cultivation, poor irrigation and debts.

The Director of the Institute, Usha Rani, explained how a study done on agrarian distress had established that integrating livestock with farming prevents farmer suicides.

Calling for greater attention and investments on agriculture, Naidu said: “We have a situation today where despite phenomenal increase in food production (270 mt), farmers are not able to get adequate returns from their investment. Agriculture remains an unattractive vocation to many families. We must change this situation.”

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