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 study on climate change impact on insect pest prevalence was 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 pest prevalence has increased, new types of insects affecting the crops, more weed growth affecting the crops, and the cost of insecticides and pesticides use has increased several folds. To manage these insect pests, synthetic insecticides and pesticides are used which have the number of disadvantages associated with them. To overcome these, sustainable adaptation strategies for insect pest management are identified from the literature and are described in this paper. These strategies include 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 pest management for transforming subsistence farming into sustainable farming.