Bringing Climate Resilience in Soybean Crop using Modified Sowing Techniques in Rainfed Condition in Madhya Pradesh

Climate change is humanity’s greatest challenge ever. The industrial revolution and agricultural developments led to considerable increase in the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs). There are agro-technologies and practices having capability to support farmers in reducing loss due to climatic vulnerability and extreme events. Keeping in view the importance of the issue, this investigation tried to find out the level of climate resilience in soybean crop offered by broad-bed furrow and ridge & furrow methods. In this study, six NICRA KVKs growing soybean crop in kharif season have selected and observations were taken from the demonstrated plots. The comparison of improved practice and farmers practice shows that the average yield increased by 3.35 q/ha which is the effect of broad bed furrow (BBF) technology and ridge furrow system (RFS) method on the productivity. Further, climate resilience index was developed to estimate the link between climatic vulnerability and resulting crop yields in order to quantify the climate resilience potential of the applied technology. This paper also compared the CRI of two sowing methods recommended for the crop resilience viz., broad bed and furrow and ridge and furrow. CRI of soybean crop estimated under BBF method was ranged from 68.88 to 77.62 per cent. The maximum crop resilience index of 77.62 per cent was observed by KVK Jhabua and minimum of 68.88 per cent by KVK Tikamgarh followed by other KVKs. Further, CRI of soybean crop under ridge and furrow method was ranged from 86.88 to 69.31 per cent with maximum of 86.88 per cent in KVK Datia and minimum of 69.31 per cent in KVK Satna followed by other KVKs. The findings indicate about the advantage of climate resilient practices in the form of planting on broad bed furrow and ridge and furrow over farmer practices. This resulted in higher production due to offering better resilience in the field condition. Moreover, there is need for motivating farmers to adopt it to reduce the losses due to climate vulnerability. Enhancing resilience of the farming community to climate risks to ensure sustainability over a period has to be focused on climate resilient agriculture in the country. Thus, the focus is on adaptation to climate variability, which entails appropriate strategies to contingent situations and scale up the climate resilience technology for increasing the production and productivity of other crops in the state.