Upscaling Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) technologies in India to 2050: A modeling approach

Abstract

A group of biophysical and economic models is configured to implement a modelling approach to upscale Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) technologies to simulate the impacts and costs of climate change at the national level. There is also an attempt to evaluate the effectiveness of CSA technologies in counteracting the impacts of climate change. Due to climate change, crop yields and production are projected to decline by as much as 10.5 and 9.9% respectively, compared to the rest of the world, where the predicted yield and production declines will be 5.0 and 3.7% in 2050. CSA technologies can fully compensate for the yield and production effects of climate change. Among the single CSA technology suites, irrigation water technology and soil-fertility technology seem to be the best, but adoption of stacked technologies appears to provide higher benefits. CSA technologies alone are insufficient to achieve the goal of doubling farmers’ income. Additional policies and investment are needed to ensure price stability and encourage crop intensification and diversification to boost farm incomes.