India's 'Climate Smart' Villages Target Sustainable Agriculture
by The Daily Eye Team September 8 2014, 6:00 am Estimated Reading Time: 0 mins, 37 secsScientists warn that agriculture around the world can be significantly affected by climate change, and are now teaching farmers new technologies to adapt. At one ?climate smart? village in northern India, farmers are changing age-old practices to overcome the challenge of increasingly erratic weather patterns. Harpreet Singh of Taraori village in northern Haryana state says recent years of failed rains and rising temperatures have damaged the paddy of wheat crop on his sprawling 30-hectare farm .But unlike other farmers, this year?s weak monsoon rains did not worry him. Singh has abandoned the age-old method of transplanting rice saplings after sprouting them in a nursery. Instead he planted ?direct-seeded rice,? where seeds are sown and sprouted directly in the field.