THE STRATEGY

The poverty, drought and land degradation in the dry lands can be broken by adopting a four-pronged science-based strategy developed by ICRISAT and its partners for drought mitigation. First is growing drought tolerant and climate change ready crops to match the available length of the growing season and low soil moisture Second is contingent action to replace affected crops with those that are more drought tolerant. Third is the efficient management of natural resources, arresting land degradation, conserving soil moisture and harvesting water in the rainy season for supplemental irrigation. Fourth is empowering stakeholders through capacity building, enabling rural institutions and formulating policies supportive of dry land agriculture. Policies and programmes supportive of dry land agriculture to be implemented are:  Increasing significantly public investments in dry land agriculture, including higher funding for agricultural research and rural infrastructure.  Developing sophisticated techniques of predicting and forecasting the monsoons in the context of climate change.  Enabling collective action and rural institutions for agriculture and natural resource management.  Rehabilitating degraded lands and diversifying livelihood systems for landless and vulnerable groups.  Recharging depleted groundwater aquifers and enforcing strong regulations on groundwater extraction. 
Along with appropriate policy and institutional innovations, can have a significant impact in increasing agricultural productivity. India should start investing for the long-term sustainability of the farming sector particularly in dryland agriculture. By doing this, India will enable its farmers to win the gamble with the monsoons for good. Initiating government support for water saving options (e.g., drip irrigation and dry land crops). Including dry land crops in the minimum support price scheme.