Agriculture drought management options: Scope and opportunities

Abstract

Drought is one of the recurring features of Indian agriculture especially in the rainfed areas. Severity of its impacts depends upon its nature (chronic and contingent), its duration and frequency, and the extent of area afflicted. Drought not only impacts production at farm level vis-à-vis national food security but also causes miseries to human life and livestock. The present drought management strategies, however, are skewed toward crisis management rather than risk management. The latter needs enhanced insight into even the minute features of the agroecologies for viable solutions to mitigate drought stress. These solutions are determined by capacity to reduce soil moisture deficit, minimizing the impact of drought and accelerating the recovery. However, the key technologies for drought proofing are watershed management, in situ water conservation, and integrated farming systems that include resilient crops, contingent crop plans, etc. Drought stress management further needs shaping through modern tools for characterization of agroecosystem, stress mitigation options, and genetic modification of crops for drought tolerance. In this context, the present review attempts to look at various options being offered by advances in drought management.