Over the last few years Kerala has been experiencing crop failures and productivity loss, exacerbated by the recent floods and landslides that severely damaged the agricultural sector. Climate change is affecting agrarian micro-climates, impacting predictability, yield, and increasing crop diseases. Something needs to change. But how do you overhaul one of the largest and oldest departments in the State, restructuring its entire operation to support resilience? It is a big, bold unprecedented action, but Kerala believes that this is what it needs to do to make agriculture thrive. Kerala is reorganizing its agricultural practices based on agro-ecological zones, and with it bringing in array of other agricultural solutions: agri-insurance to protect its farmers, agritech to build resilience to climate shocks, and extensive marketing and traceability to strengthen supply chains – all to build the resilience of agricultural practices and livelihoods, as well as build Agriculture’s resilience to climate change 

Thanks to Mr DK Singh, Suma Vishnudas, Viju B and Vinayak Ghatate, Bala Menon, Heather Fernandes, and Illika Sahu. Kaalavastha is narrated by Radhika Viswanathan. It is researched, written and produced by Radhika Viswanathan and Samyuktha Varma. Erwick D’souza composed the music. 

For more information go to https://www.worldbank.org/keralapodcast or email keralapodcast@worldbankgroup.org  

Attributions: 

Freesound.org: Frogmouth.wav - shyamal 

Augustin Vadakil story taken from “Climate change in Wayanad, Kerala: ‘Farming only makes sense if it is a hobby’” by People’s Archive of Rural India (CC license):  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PnYorPhm0E&feature=emb_title 

Cheruvayil Raman audio from Thanima 2 at NITC 2017, Invited talk by Mr.Cheruvayal Raman: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aIdgiBun7A