New Delhi, May 9 (IANS). The Central Government has intensified work on a large scale to deal with the challenges of climate change and make farming more sustainable. According to an official factsheet released by the government, Rs 2,119.84 crore has so far been released for the Rainfed Agricultural Development (RAD) program under the National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA) launched in 2014-15. This has covered 8.50 lakh hectare area and around 14.35 lakh farmers have benefited.
The government said that to promote water conservation and better use of water in agriculture in the country, work is also being done on micro irrigation schemes at a rapid pace. Since 2015-16, about 109 lakh hectare area has been brought under the ambit of micro irrigation, for which the Central Government has released an assistance of Rs 26,325 crore. The government has set a target of bringing 100 lakh hectare area under micro irrigation in the next five years between 2025-26 to 2029-30. For this, it has been planned to cover at least 20 lakh hectare area every year under the ‘Per Drop More Crop (PDMC)’ scheme.
To improve the quality of soil, the government is also paying special attention to the Soil Health Card Scheme. During the year 2025-26, 97.53 lakh soil samples were collected, out of which 92.87 lakh samples were tested. At the same time, a total of 25.79 crore soil health cards have been issued since 2015. Through these cards, farmers are advised to use the right nutrients and fertilizers as per the crop, which improves the quality of the soil and also improves the production.
According to a 2025 report by NITI Aayog, the Soil Health Card scheme has led to farmers reducing excessive use of urea and progress towards balanced fertilizer use. 68.5 percent of the farmers surveyed believed that there was a major improvement in the quality of their soil by adopting the suggested measures, while 25.7 percent of the farmers said that there was partial improvement.
The government also informed that 2,996 climate-resilient crop varieties have been developed and released under the National Agricultural Research System between 2014 and 2025. These new varieties have been designed in such a way that they can give better production even in changing weather and climatic conditions.
About 60 percent of farming in India occurs in rain-fed areas, which contributes about 40 percent of the country’s total food grain production. In such a situation, conservation of natural resources and development of sustainable farming system is being considered very important. For this purpose, the government had started the National Sustainable Agriculture Mission under the National Climate Change Action Plan.
Later, from the year 2018-19, this mission was implemented as a sub-mission under ‘Green Revolution-Krishonnati Yojana’. Then from 2022-23, it was included under the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (PMRKVY), so that schemes for climate-resilient and sustainable agricultural development can be taken forward in an integrated manner.
According to the government, farmers are being encouraged to adopt integrated farming systems under the Rain-Based Agricultural Development Programme. In this, activities like multi-cropping farming, crop rotation, mixed farming along with horticulture, animal husbandry and fisheries are also being added, so that the income of farmers increases and farming can become more safe and sustainable.
Under this scheme, Rs 343.86 crore has been allocated to the states and union territories in the financial year 2025-26. Through this, training has also been given to 96,013 farmers.
–IANS
DBP
