Climate change impact on insect pest prevalence and sustainable adaptation strategies for their management.

Abstract

Climate change has a pronounced impact on agriculture. A pan-India studyon climate change impact on insect pestprevalencewas conducted on paddy, cotton, pulses, wheat, mustard and barley cultivating marginalized farmers(n=280).The systematic random sampling methodology was adopted for sample population identification. A specially designed, developed and field tested questionnaire was used to elicit the information from the respondent.The findings revealed that during the crop growth stage insect pestprevalencehas increased, new types of insects affecting the crops, more weed growth affecting the crops, and the cost of insecticidesand pesticidesuse has increased several folds.To manage theseinsect pests,synthetic insecticidesand pesticidesare used which have the number of disadvantages associated with them. To overcome these, sustainable adaptation strategies for insect pestmanagementare identified from the literature and are described in this paper. These strategiesinclude intercropping,poly-culture, cover crop, rice-fish agriculture system, organic mulches, bio-fumigation, trap cropping etc. Farmers’ awareness, training, and workshops are required for the dissemination of these strategies for insect pestmanagementfor transforming subsistence farming into sustainable farming.