Project to help dryland farmers shows good results

The National Initiative on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA), a pilot project to help dryland farmers, has shown good results. It was taken up by the Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture, Hyderabad, a constituent organisation of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), two years ago.

The project, being implemented in three districts — Bijapur, Belgaum and Bangalore Rural — through the Regional Agricultural Research Stations (RARSs), has a multipronged approach to help dryland farmers get better yields with the available water.

M.S. Shirahatti, Agriculture Manager of the RARC here and co-principal investigator, told The Hindu that owing to drastic and unstable climatic conditions, dryland farmers were badly affected.