Through the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, the Government is implementing the National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture project to study climate impacts and promote resilient technologies. Risk and vulnerability assessments were carried out at district level for 651 predominantly agricultural districts under Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change protocols. 310 districts were identified as vulnerable, including 109 categorised as very high and 201 as highly vulnerable. District Agriculture Contingency Plans were prepared to address weather aberrations and recommend location specific crops, varieties and practices for state departments.\n\nICAR demonstrated location specific climate resilient technologies through Krishi Vigyan Kendras in 448 model Climate Resilient Villages across 151 vulnerable districts. Village level seed banks, community nurseries and climate risk committees were set up and capacity building was carried out for drought and flood tolerant varieties of rice, wheat, soybean and mustard. ICAR released 2900 varieties in the last 10 years, of which 2661 are tolerant to one or more biotic or abiotic stresses. Technical assistance reached small and marginal farmers beyond the 151 covered districts.\n\nICAR has established 731 Krishi Vigyan Kendras to promote new technologies and organised training programmes under which 1.856 million (mn) farmers have been trained. Community institutions and participatory approaches such as farmers committees and fodder banks were promoted to support resilience. Promotion of drought resistant and high yield seed varieties was intensified to tackle environmental variability. The ministry noted that artificial intelligence and IoT enabled systems are being used to improve productivity, sustainability and livelihoods.\n\nThe Kisane-Mitra voice based AI chatbot supports 11 regional languages, handles about 20,000 queries daily and has answered more than 9.5 mn queries. Bharat VISTAAR offers multilingual advisories and a round the clock AI assistant, while a national pest surveillance system and KISAN SARATHI provide analytics and advisory services.