Rs 25-crore Norway project to boost food security

In a bid to ensure food security, India and Norway are working on a four-year project to improve climate change adaptive capacity of agriculture and water sectors in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.

The main objective is to map vulnerability, gaps and preparedness to address impacts of climate change on agriculture and water sectors besides selecting and applying suitable climate and hydrology scenarios.

The Rs 25 crore project ClimaAdapt will initially focus on Erode and Trichy districts of Tamil Nadu, and Nalgonda and Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, according to Norwegian Minister of Agriculture and Food Trygve Slagsvold Vedum.

Speaking during the inaugural session of ‘ClimaAdapt programme and National consultation on coastal and marine biodiversity conservation in India: The future we want’, he said the programme funded by the Norwegian embassy in New Delhi links research, innovation and capacity building.

“It provides a unique opportunity where farmers, women and other key stakeholders can interact with scientists to formulate the best adaption methods,” said the minister, who is on his maiden visit to India.

Interestingly, this comes in the wake of Norway establishing an initiative to support adaptation of the agriculture sector in developing countries to climate change.

ClimaAdapt involves a well-established consortium of six partners. The selected adaptation measures will be implemented in an identified cluster of villages in the two States, and based on the experience, upscaling methodologies will be developed.