ABSTRACT
Climate smart agriculture (CSA) refers to the incorporation of adaptation and mitigation practices in agriculture that enhances the system-resistance and recovery-mechanism against climatic hazards. Easily available and locally adopted resource-conserving technologies (RCTs) are successfully applied on field under the conservation agricultural practices in different rice-based cropping systems around the world keeping in mind stable agricultural production, maintaining better soil health and quality as well as reduced greenhouse gases emissions. Different technological options for CSA can be broadly grouped into four categories; natural resources management, managing crop improvement and production, livestock and fisheries production systems, and enabling support systems. Some of the popular RCTs in crop production systems includes, residue management, crop diversification, reduced or zero tillage practices, nutrient conservation techniques, water conservation for rice, energy, labour saving technologies by farm mechanization. Particularly, zero tillage systems combined with adequate water management can reduce the release of methane and nitrous oxide.
