Farmers’ livelihoods are often destroyed in disasters in the State and rice farmers take a long time to restore their livelihoods. In this backdrop, a team of delegates from the University of Southampton are working to identify which agricultural practices enable rice farmers to recover most quickly from disasters like cyclones or floods.
A workshop organised here on Tuesday brought a wide-range of stakeholders including academicians, researchers and Government Department and NGO officials to identify achievements and move from the State’s successes in saving lives and livelihoods.
The speakers viewed that a detailed agricultural policy should include the effect of climate change and natural disasters, preservation of traditional seeds, development of salt and submerged tolerance rice variety, innovative crop management practices and capacity development at village level and development of a land-use practice.
Project leader Dr Jadunandan Dash said the project would help the Odisha Government’s initiatives to identify and target those areas of lowest resilience to floods and storms.