NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 19: A cactus gene isolated and transplanted into wheat for better heat tolerance to beat the vagaries of climate is just a futuristic scenario. But top agriculture scientists from the US and India could soon be working towards such solutions to mitigate the effect of climate change on agriculture as part of the research collaboration launched by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George W Bush.
India has sent its first draft proposal to the US, which includes climate change among others, for the Indo-US Knowledge Initiative on Agricultural Research and Education.
Director General of Indian Council for Agriculture Research Dr Mangala Rai, along with his team, has had four video-conferencing sessions with his American counterpart in the US Department of Agriculture on the research areas that would mutually benefit both India and US. And climate change has emerged as an area of focus for both countries. The US team is likely to visit India in November.
With global climate change concerns growing rapidly, the potential detrimental effect on crops has been pinpointed as an area of mutual concern during these interactions.
We are visualising a basic modelling of predicting climate change and a way of combating it. For example, if we visualise a rise in temperature when wheat is maturing, we could look for genes that have thermal tolerance to prevent crop loss, said Rai. This is a long-term futuristic approach to develop cutting-edge technology to mitigate effects of climate change.
Apart from development of high temperature tolerant varieties of cereals and models for climatic risk predictions, the objective is also to examine strategies to reduce methane emissions from paddies and livestock.
