Dynamism of food security and agricultural sustainability to face the climate scenario in the 21^st century

Agriculture is occupying about 38% of the Earth's terrestrial surface, the world's largest use of land (Foley, J.A. et al. 2011). The agricultural community has had tremendous successes in massively increasing world food production over the past six decades and making food more affordable for the majority of the world's population, despite a doubling in population. Global food demand will continue to increase for at least another 50 years-against a backdrop of growing competition for land, water, labor and energy and under threat from climate change. FAO projected that feeding a world population of about 9 billion people in 2050 would require raising overall food production by at least 70% (FAO, 2009).

India with a land area of merely 2.4 per cent of the world's area is a home to 15 per cent of the global population (1.1 billion out of 7.3 billion). India is also rapidly urbanizing with 7.3 million people moving into urban centers every year. In India per capita arable land availability has declined from 0.29 ha in 1965–66 to 0.14 ha in 2011–12 (Fertilizers Statistics 2013–14) and will shrink to less than 0.08 ha in 2025. Currently almost 46 percent of India's geographical area is under agriculture. A large percentage of this land falls in rain-fed regions generating 55 percent of the country's agricultural output, providing food to 40 percent of the nation's population (Ahmad et al., 2011; Planning Commission, 2012). More than 80 percent of the farmers are smallholder producers, with very poor capacity and resources to deal with the vagaries of weather and changes in climate. This necessitates that India needs a strategy to increase food production at one side and also keeping pace to equalize the negative effects of change in climate.