01 January 2026: MAINS CURRENT AFFAIRS

MAINS Current Affairs includes India needs Climate-Resilient Agriculture (CRA) & Dynamic Ground Water Resource Assessment Report, 2024

ECONOMY

1. India needs Climate-Resilient Agriculture (CRA)

Context: India is accelerating efforts to scale Climate-Resilient Agriculture (CRA) as climate change intensifies risks to food security, rainfed farming, and farm incomes.

About

What is Climate-Resilient Agriculture?

Climate-Resilient Agriculture refers to farming systems that sustainably increase productivity, enhance adaptation to climate variability, reduce greenhouse gas emissions where possible, and ensure food security.
It integrates biotechnology (climate-tolerant and genome-edited crops), bio-inputs (biofertilisers, biopesticides), precision irrigation, soil health management, and AI-based advisories.

Trends / data points:

51% of India’s net sown area is rainfed, contributing nearly 40% of food production, making it highly climate-vulnerable.
Over 75% of annual rainfall is concentrated in just 4 monsoon months, increasing drought–flood cycles.
Rising heatstress, erratic rainfall, floods, droughts, and salinity are lowering yield stability.

Need for Climate-Resilient Agriculture (CRA):

Food security pressure: Stable yields are required to feed a population projected to reach 1.7 billion, protecting against 10–40% projected losses in staples like wheat.
Rainfed vulnerability: With 60% of Indian farmland being rainfed, CRA provides a lifeline for marginal farmers against increasingly erratic monsoon cycles.
Resource sustainability: Transitioning to CRA halts the alarming depletion of groundwater and restores soil organic carbon, ensuring the long-term viability of land.
Income stability: Diversified systems and stress-tolerant crops shield farmers from “poverty traps” caused by total crop failure during extreme weather events.
Environmental protection: CRA practices like zero-tillage reduce methane emissions and residue burning, turning farms from carbon sources into vital carbon sinks.

Initiatives taken:

NICRA (National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture):
- Strategic research, technology demonstration, and capacity building.
- Climate-resilient technologies demonstrated in 448 villages.

National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA): Focus on rainfed areas, soil health, water use efficiency, and integrated farming.
Crop diversification programmes: Under PM-RKVY, Krishi Unnati Yojana, AICRP-IFS, shifting from water-intensive crops to pulses, oilseeds, millets, nutri-cereals, agroforestry.
Per Drop More Crop: Promotes micro-irrigation with subsidies (55% for small farmers).
KVKs & ICAR support: Frontline demonstrations, agro-advisories, seed and fodder banks, climate risk committees.
BioE3 policy: Positions CRA as a key area for biotechnology-led climate solutions.

Challenges Associated with CRA:

Adoption barriers: High upfront costs for micro-irrigation and conservation machinery deter smallholders who lack access to formal credit or long-term incentives.
Bio-input quality: The market is flooded with unstandardized bio-fertilisers; poor efficacy leads to low farmer trust and a quick return to chemical farming.
Slow seed rollout: While 1,800+ resilient varieties exist, the time lag in “lab-to-land” transfer means many farmers still use old, vulnerable local seeds.
Digital divide: Despite high mobile penetration, low digital literacy and poor rural connectivity prevent farmers from utilizing real-time AI weather advisories.
Policy fragmentation: Overlapping schemes like NMSA and PMKSY often lead to administrative silos, making it difficult for farmers to access holistic support.
Climate volatility pace: Global warming is accelerating faster than current research cycles, often rendering newly developed adaptive measures obsolete within a decade.

Way Ahead for Climate-Resilient Agriculture in India:

Accelerate the Deployment of Smart Seeds: Fast-track the transition from lab to land for genome-edited and climate-smart varieties to match the pace of climate shifts.
g. Scaling up the distribution of Sub1 rice varieties (flood-tolerant) in the flood-prone basins of Bihar and Assam.
Institutionalize Bio-Input Quality Control: Establish rigorous regulatory frameworks and decentralized testing labs to ensure the reliability of organic and bio-fertillizers.
g. Implementing QR-code-based traceability for bio-inputs to guarantee nutrient content and purity for farmers in Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh.
Close the Rural Digital Divide: Leverage the “Digital Agriculture Mission” to provide hyper-local, AI-driven weather and pest advisories to the last mile.
g. Utilizing community-led Digital Sakhis or Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) to bridge the literacy gap in using the Annavari or Meghdoot apps.
Enhance Climate-Linked Financial Safety Nets: Shift from traditional crop insurance to parametric (weather-based) insurance that provides faster payouts during extreme events.
g. Integrating satellite-based remote sensing in PMFBY to automate damage assessment and speed up compensation for hailstorms in Maharashtra.
Foster Integrated Landscape Management: Move beyond individual crop schemes toward a “landscape approach” that connects water, soil, and forest management for regional resilience.

Conclusion:

Climate-Resilient Agriculture is no longer optional for India’s food security and farmer livelihoods. While multiple initiatives exist, scale, coherence, and inclusiveness remain the key gaps. A unified national CRA roadmap can transform Indian agriculture into a productive, adaptive, and climate-secure system.

GEOGRAPHY

2. Dynamic Ground Water Resource Assessment Report, 2024

Context: The Union Minister of Jal Shakti has released the Dynamic Ground Water Resource Assessment Report, 2024, showing a net improvement in groundwater status with higher recharge and lower long-term extraction compared to 2017.

About:

Key trends of ground water resources in India:

Increase in recharge: Total annual groundwater recharge is 446.90 BCM, showing a long-term rise driven by rainwater harvesting and water conservation structures.
Moderate extraction levels: Annual groundwater extraction stands at 245.64 BCM, with the stage of extraction at 60.47%, indicating overall national-level sustainability.
Expansion of ‘Safe’ units:4% of assessment units are now categorised as Safe, up from 62.6% in 2017, reflecting improved management practices.
Decline in over-exploitation: Over-exploited units have fallen from 17.24% (2017) to 11.13% (2024), indicating partial reversal of groundwater stress.
Role of water conservation: Recharge from tanks, ponds and water conservation structures has increased to 25.34 BCM, nearly doubling since 2017.
Regional imbalance persists: Over-exploited and critical units remain concentrated in Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Telangana and Gujarat.
Rainfall dominance: Nearly 61% of recharge comes from rainfall, making groundwater availability highly sensitive to monsoon variability and climate change.

Reasons for groundwater depletion in India:

Agriculture-driven over-extraction: Groundwater supports ~62% of irrigation, with water-intensive crops (rice, sugarcane) dominating NW and peninsular India, pushing 11.13% units into ‘Over-exploited’ category.
Highly seasonal rainfall dependence: Nearly 75% of annual rainfall occurs in just four months (June–September), causing sharp temporal mismatch between recharge and year-round withdrawal.
Hydro-geological constraints: About two-thirds of India lies in hard rock terrains, where groundwater storage is limited to fractured zones, making extraction unsustainable.
Energy-subsidy distortion: Cheap or free electricity encourages indiscriminate pumping, especially in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu where >25% units are Critical/Over-exploited.
Urban–industrial pressure: Rising urbanisation and industrial clusters increase non-agricultural extraction, reflected in 245.64 BCM annual groundwater draft (2024).

Initiatives taken to counter depletion:

National Aquifer Mapping Programme (NAQUIM 2.0): Scientific mapping and aquifer-level management planning.
Atal Bhujal Yojana (ATAL JAL): Community-led demand-side management in water-stressed blocks.
Master Plan for Artificial Recharge (2020): Proposal for 42 crore structures to harness 185 BCM of monsoon rainfall.
Jal Shakti Abhiyan – Catch the Rain: Nationwide focus on rainwater harvesting and water conservation.
PMKSY – Groundwater component: Promotes efficient irrigation and conjunctive water use in Safe

Challenges associated with groundwater stress:

Water security risk: Groundwater supplies 85% of rural and ~50% of urban drinking water, making depletion a direct human security concern.
Regional inequality: Over-exploitation is concentrated in NW India, western arid regions, and peninsular crystalline belts, creating uneven development outcomes.
Quality deterioration: 127 assessment units (1.88%) are saline, while arsenic and fluoride hazards coexist in quantity-stressed aquifers.
Climate vulnerability: Erratic rainfall and declining irrigation return flows caused a marginal fall in recharge from 449.08 BCM (2023) to 446.90 BCM (2024).
Governance fragmentation: Groundwater is a State subject, resulting in weak regulation, limited pricing signals, and uneven adoption of scientific management norms.

Way forward:

Aquifer-based management: Scale up NAQUIM & NAQUIM-2.0 for village-level aquifer plans, prioritising Over-exploited and Critical units.
Demand-side reform: Shift cropping patterns, rationalise power subsidies, and promote micro-irrigation to bring stage of extraction below 60% sustainably.
Artificial recharge push: Implement Master Plan for Artificial Recharge (2020) to create 1.42 crore structures harnessing 185 BCM monsoon runoff.
Community stewardship: Expand Atal Bhujal Yojana (ATAL JAL) covering 8,220 water-stressed Gram Panchayats with behavioural and demand-side interventions.
Data-driven governance: Institutionalise annual groundwater assessment (since 2022) using IN-GRES (GIS-based platform) for real-time policy correction.

Conclusion:

The 2024 Ground Water Assessment shows cautious optimism, with improved recharge and declining over-exploitation. However, regional stress, climate risks, and governance gaps continue to threaten sustainability. Moving forward, aquifer-based planning, community participation, and climate-resilient water governance are essential for India’s long-term water security.