There is a lot the government can do to assist farmers to cope with climate-induced farming problems Climate change, which for India is predicted to result in higher and more erratic precipitations, will have negative impacts on the productivity of important crops such as rice and wheat.
Beyond general climate change trends, what is more critical is the need to address the impact of climate variability and extreme weather events.
Are there government incentives to smooth out climate and weather shocks and make it easier for farmers to cope with price volatility as well as production and income losses?
The answer is yes.
Fighting climate change in agriculture There are many things farmers can do themselves to cope with climate change.
Practices can range from shifting planting dates in response to changing monsoon onset dates, choosing varieties with different growth duration and adopting zero tillage to cope with climate shocks (Haryana).
There is also a lot the government can do to assist farmers to cope with climate-induced farming problems.
Another important government function is drought monitoring and management, especially critical for areas under water scarcity.
Crop diversification India has a wide range of agro-climatic conditions, allowing for a multitude of crops to be grown, even in smaller areas.
However, since the Green Revolution and the expansion of irrigation capacity, there has been a significant narrowing of the number of crops grown when now only six crops take up the vast majority of land, water and resources, adding to the future vulnerability of the food supply system.

Water scarcity leaves Bandipur high and dry.
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Ananda Man Joshi, president of a local consumer committee, said water sources are drying.
“We were bringing 300,000 liters per day from the source which lies 7 kilometers way from the town.
Now, we are getting only around 150,000 liters,” he added.
Kishan Pradhan, a local tourism entrepreneur, said scarcity of drinking water has affected people in Depchedanda, Piplegaun and Bandipur for the past few months.
Similarly, most of the hoteliers say their service quality has been affected due to shortage of drinking water.
“Some hoteliers are bringing water in tanker from as far as Dumre Bazaar which is eight kilometers away from Bandipur,” Bainsa Bahadur Gurung, president of Tourism Development Committee, Bandipur, said.
He further added that most of the hoteliers like him were using tankers to bring water from Dumre.
“The source itself is small.

Norway’s Transition To Electric Vehicles Will Take Several Decades Even In Most Optimistic Scenarios, According To New Study.
The most optimistic scenario examined in the study showed a 90% market share in Norway for new all-electric vehicles by as soon as 2024, but even in this scenario, a 90% market penetration rate wouldn’t occur until 2039 — about 22 years from now.
Such a supposition depends, though, on the expectation of a stable marketplace for autos, gasoline, and fossil fuels in general over the coming decades, and a relatively stable economic environment and geopolitical environment for that matter — things which are very unlikely when you take a look at all of the looming problems related to economically recoverable resources, climate change, agricultural productivity, and water scarcity.
With regard to the new study, here’s more from Green Car Congress: “Using a stock-flow model based on data from Norway… In his paper in the journal Energy Policy, Lasse Fridstrøm finds that… For light duty freight vehicles (LDVs), the corresponding milestones would be reached in 2026 and 2040, respectively, according to the same optimistic policy scenario.
Based on the Markov chain principle — by which the flows and stock in year t depend only on the stock of the previous year t-1, Fridstrøm’s model projects year-by-year changes in the fleet of vehicles in each category, classified by age, weight and powertrain (energy) technology.
The trend scenario is essentially an extrapolation of the changes in market shares observed between 2010 and 2015.” That being the case, there will no doubt be some who will object to the findings, but it should be realized here that the rate of electric vehicle adoption in Norway during 2010–2015 was extremely fast — by no means a “conservative” estimate for future growth rates.
As a reminder, however, the Norwegian government is currently aiming for all new passenger car sales to be fully battery electrics or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles by 2025.
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Early on, he founded massive trusts, endowments, and institutions covering all manner of arts, science, educational, and peace initiatives.
Since 2001, though, the Carnegie Corporation, the magnate’s original grant making foundation, has convened with over 20 associated Carnegie organizations to choose a class of Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy recipients.
The goal is to honor those who continue to embody that ideal of strategic giving, and inspire more of their peers to do so.
The 2017 honorees, which were just announced, include nine medal recipients from eight different initiatives (one is being worked on by a couple).
Each institution can nominate candidates with a seven-person committee made up of several core Carnegie groups—Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institution for Science, Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace—and a rotating cast of others eventually choosing the winner.
In 2005, her company founded the first private corporate philanthropy group in China, the HeungKong Charitable Foundation, which works to improve education, alleviate poverty, and provide rescue and disaster relief.
Since then, he and his wife, Marguerite, a former elementary school teacher, have committed all of their money to charitable work, primarily through the Lenfest Foundation, which works on education reform.
Azim Premji (India): Premji runs Wipro Limited, a former hydrogenated cooking fat company that, over the last several decades, transitioned into an $8.5 billion international IT, consulting, and outsourcing group.
In 1996, he and his wife, Jose, founded the Robertson Foundation, which makes impact-driven grants in education, the environment, and medical advancements.
He runs the Jeff Skoll Group, which has invested various companies and foundations to battle inequality, boost economic opportunity, and protect the environment.

Two New Hampshire companies collectively received nearly $2.3 million in grants from the Department of Energy, including one to improve monitoring of nuclear events around the world.
A $150,000 grant to Ground Energy Support LLC in Durham will help create more data to measure the use of heat pump technology that taps thermal energy below the earth’s surface, according to Matt Davis, co-founder of GES and an associate professor and interim chair of the earth sciences department at the University of New Hampshire.
The goal is to generate more information about the technology’s potential financial savings over other fuel options and whether it is “more practical and feasible to use,” Davis said Tuesday.
Creare in Hanover, meanwhile, received three grants, totaling more than $2.1 million.
One grant for nearly $150,000 will develop technology for low-cost desalination of water in coastal regions hit by water scarcity.
One “project aims to improve our ability to monitor and characterize nuclear events around the world to determine compliance with the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty,” according to a company summary provided by the Department of Energy.
“We will develop a new lower-power method of collecting the small aerosol particles from the atmosphere that are needed for analysis.” The other grant will develop technology to produce uranium alloy fuel pins that will be needed for the next generation of nuclear power plants.
Creare officials couldn’t be reached Tuesday.
The funds were part of 263 grants totaling $116 million given to 184 small businesses in 40 states.
Phase I grants, including the Creare one on desalination and the GES award, allow small businesses to research the technical feasibility of new innovations that advance the mission of the Department of Energy.

Is MK Stalin’s desilting drive more than just a photo-opportunity?.
Besides providing a photo-opportunity for the leader to showcase himself as a man of service, the campaign is also a dig at the ruling AIADMK and its efficiency in getting the job done.
And while Stalin has in the past attempted to reinvent himself in the eyes of the electorate in the run-up to the 2016 Assembly polls through his Namakku Naame campaign, it notably failed to achieve the desired results.
So, is this new desilting drive an attempt, once again, to favourably position himself in the wake of the political upheaval in the state.
Stalin has been doing the latter.” Observing that Chennai is on the brink of a major water crisis, he adds, “This man who has been the Mayor should know this but I do not see any concrete action from the part of the DMK.
He is just trying to gain some media coverage and trying to say that this government is not doing anything.” Radhakrishnan also argued that the issue of desilting waterbodies and tanks is usually raised in the summer, prior to the monsoon.
“It is good that the opposition party is doing something but there are 100 other issues he can raise,” he said.
“It is not that we are not raising the issue of water scarcity, we have done all that, desilting lakes is a programme to alleviate water scarcity, it can only be done when there is no water in the lake and this is the right time to do that.
We are not just another political party alone, we are also a social movement, we have been addressing the issues of the people from the grassroot,” said DMK spokesperson A Saravanan.
Denying that the campaign was about political positioning, the DMK leader said that whether Stalin is in power or not, he takes up the issues of the people.

Oshikoto tackling water problems.
THE Oshikoto regional council has in the 2016/2017 financial year made N$528 846 available for the food and cash for work programme, which was shared equally among the region’s eleven constituencies in order to address water woes.
He enlightened the residents on the various developmental projects currently underway in the region, as well as the challenges they are facing.
“In the quest to address the water crisis in the region, the council completed the installation of seven water pipelines in various constituencies,” he stated.
The money and the food are used to pay those digging the pipeline trenches, as well as to buy pipelines in the constituencies.
Twelve boreholes were also drilled at the Nehale lya Mpingana, Okankolo, Eengodi and Omuthiya constituencies by the agriculture ministry as part of their capital projects in the region.
These four constituencies are the most affected in the region when it comes to water scarcity.
More often, residents and their livestock had to go for prolonged periods without water.
Some depend on muddy or dirty water, which is not fit for human consumption.
They also travel tens of kilometres in donkey carts to access clean water.

The Trump administration reassigned several top-level employees in its reorganization of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
The New Mexico State Director for the Bureau of Land Management, Amy Lueders, whose background is in economics, is also being reassigned to the Fish and Wildlife Service.
In a state like New Mexico, with more than 20 American Indian tribes, vast tracts of public lands, federal water projects, myriad endangered species issues, large-scale oil and gas development and existing and proposed mines on public lands, the staffing changes—and what they signal— could have deep and long-lasting effects on the state’s landscapes, communities and future.
During a Senate subcommittee hearing last week, U.S. Sen. Tom Udall questioned Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke about the staffing changes, slated to take place at the end of June.
In the southwestern United States, the agency has also worked extensively on planning for future water scarcity.
Recently, for example, the agency studied how the Upper Rio Grande Basin is likely to be affected by climate change.
BLM’s cuts and baskets Within the Interior Department, one agency slated for targeted changes is the Bureau of Land Management, which oversees 13 million acres in New Mexico.
Restoring sovereignty, according to the document, would come from “effective management of the borderlands” in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Defense.
“The agency is shrinking even though its responsibilities haven’t decreased, if anything it’s gotten greater.” Ruch also said that Nedd’s Q&A document is asking employees to undertake new responsibilities that are beyond the agency’s mandate.
But to Interior Department employees who are worried about their jobs and programs, Ruch suggests taking a deep breath.

Hong Kong needs a sense of urgency to tackle water scarcity.
Indeed, it has been estimated that 25-39 per cent of the world’s population now live in watersheds exposed to scarcity.
Although neither Hong Kong nor neighbouring cities in the Pearl River Delta feel exposed to the water deficit experienced by much of mainland China, we should not be complacent.
Emphasising this, a recent ADM Capital Foundation and Civic Exchange report, The Illusion of Plenty , illustrates the mounting pressure on water supplies in the Pearl River Delta as a consequence of disrupted climate, pollution from aggressive industrial expansion and growing populations.
Yet, there has been little progress in reducing local demand or diversifying Hong Kong’s water sources, which has no groundwater stores and relies heavily on rainwater.
Since the 1960s, the city has depended on Guangdong’s Dongjiang, or East River, for up to 80 per cent of its fresh water.
The average Hongkonger consumes as much as 224 litres of water per day, according to the Water Supplies Department.
Besides tariff reform, Hong Kong must also try to reduce wastage by controlling leaks in the water system itself.
In 2015, even before Hong Kong residents received their allotments, a third of our fresh water was lost.
Despite natural scarcity and the evolving threats of climate change and increasing competition, there has been little meaningful discussion of water issues in the political arena.

Concerted endeavour to educate farmers on managing water resources.
Water scarcity, land degradation and the resultant low agricultural productivity that’s making young farmers averse to taking up agriculture are some of the key issues that will be addressed by a new Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) project.
Indian automobile manufacturing company, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., is working with ICRISAT to address these issues in Buchinelli village, Telangana.
The launch was attended by 150 farmers, who were briefed on the objectives of the project.
The project activities include integrated water resource management through ex-situ rainwater harvesting i.e., check dams, farm ponds, revival of tanks and re-establishing drainage connectivity), in-situ moisture conservation practices and groundwater recharge system, decentralized wastewater treatment and safe use in agriculture, crop diversification from monocropping of sugarcane to other promising cropping systems with high value crops like vegetables, flowers and pulses (currently, the main rainfed crops are pigeonpea and black gram, while sugarcane is grown in the irrigated areas).
The project also comprises soil health mapping, crop and site-specific fertilizer management and introduction of high-yielding improved cultivar seeds, in addition to various other activities ranging from afforestation to women empowerment and skill development.
The NGO, Rural Education and Agriculture Development (READ) will partner with the community to form the watershed committee as well as promoting the Self-Help Groups for collective action to improve the livelihoods through integrated watershed management approach.
Mahindra & Mahindra will also support custom hiring centers for mechanizing farms to address the issues of labor shortage and cost of cultivation.
The main purpose of this collaborative initiative is to improve the livelihood of farmers through increased profits and productivity with science-led interventions.
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