Variety-based climate-smart intervention helps smallholder farmers cope with floods in the lowlands of Odisha

Natural calamities, primarily floods, of varying intensity adversely affect the standing crop leading to poor harvests. Such untoward climatic shocks invariably hit almost all blocks of Puri District in Odisha.  The variety-based climate-smart intervention proved to be a potential response in the flood-prone rice areas. This can be replicated and scaled up in other blocks within the district as part of contingency plans for rice-growing areas affected by floods in the state.

Agriculture in Odisha, India added 20.6% to the Gross State Value in 2021-22 with the low-land coastal district of Puri as one of the major contributors, according to the Odisha Economic Survey.

Topographically, 58% of the 0.189 million hectares of cultivated land in this geography are classified as shallow and deep lowlands, and the remaining is medium land.  Rice, oilseeds, green and black grams, and vegetables (eggplant, potato, okra, cauliflower, and tomato) are the major crops grown during the wet and dry seasons. With a high irrigation coverage of 70% (from canals), the district has an impressive cropping intensity of 217%.