Adaptation is a key factor that will shape the future severity of climate change impacts on food production. To deal with the impact of climate change, the potential adaptation strategies are as follows:
- Adaptation through transgenic approaches: Transgenic approaches are one of the many tools available for modern plant improvement programmes. This approach involves manipulation of genetic material and the fusion of cells beyond normal breeding barriers.
- Drought: Several drought‐tolerant transgenic plants, including rice, tomato, soybean, maize, barley and Arabidopsis have been developed. Such genetically engineered plants have generally been developed using gene‐encoding proteins that control drought‐regulatory networks.
- Salinity: Climate change also causes salinity due to effect on soil water and increase in temperature. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop salt‐tolerant varieties of crop through conventional breeding and transgenic approaches
- Developing climate‐ready crops: Development of new crop varieties with higher yield potential and resistance to multiple stresses (biotic and abiotic) will be the key to maintain yield stability. Several drought tolerance varieties have been released in South and Southeast Asia.
For example, in 2010 the variety Sahbhagi Dhan, released and notified in India, showed a consistently good performance under transplanted low‐land conditions and rain‐fed direct‐seeded upland.
- Crop diversification: Major shift in terms of diversification of agriculture into crops, commodities, enterprises and cropping/farming systems is called upon to revert the process of degradation of natural resources, rejuvenations of waste lands and also to make agriculture a profitable business.
- Alteration in land‐use pattern: Change in location of crop and livestock, adjustment in cropping pattern, planting time and methods, fertilizer and pesticide use pattern, and other management practices help to reduce the risk of climate.
- Conservation agriculture: Conservation agriculture (CA) is defined as resource‐saving agriculture crop production that strives to achieve acceptable profit together with high and sustained production level while concurrently conserving the environment.
- Efficient utilization of resources: The resource‐efficient technologies comprises those technologies which improve resource use efficiency and provide immediate economic benefits like conservation of natural resources (water, soil, biodiversity and climate), reduce production cost, reduce environmental pollution and ultimately increase yield and income of small and marginal farmers.
- Integrated nutrient management: Integrated nutrient management (INM) system or integrated plant nutrient supply (IPNS) system is a practice which aims at achieving a harmony by efficient and judicial use of chemical fertilizers in conjunction with organic manures, use of well‐decomposed crop residues, green manures, recyclable waste, compost including vermin-compost, using legumes in crop‐ ping systems, use of bio‐fertilizers and other locally available nutrient sources for sustaining soil health and amelioration of environment as well as enhancing crop productivity on long‐term basis.
- Site‐specific nutrient management: Site‐specific nutrient management (SSNM) is a plant‐based approach for managing the nutrient requirements of crop. It provides principles and tools for supplying nutrients as and when needed for plant to achieve high yields while optimizing the use of nutrients from indigenous sources.
- Harnessing indigenous technical knowledge of farmers: There is a wealth of knowledge on the range of measures that can help in developing technologies to overcome climate vulnerabilities. There is a need to harness the indigenous technical knowledge and fine‐tune them to suit the modern situation. Ecological‐based traditional knowledge could provide insights and viable options for adaptive measures.
- Integrated Farming System (IFS): Integrated farming system is defined as the integration of different interrelated, interacting and interdependent farm enterprises which are suited to agroclimatic condition socioeconomic situation of the farmers. Integrated fish‐duck farming and Rice‐fish‐poultry farming have been developed for small and marginal farmers