Across the developing world, policymakers and development practitioners concerned with eliminating hunger and improving nutrition are confronting a stark reality: the nutritional demands of growing populations will increase agriculture’s carbon footprint as the world struggles to stop climate change, all while shifting weather patterns threaten crop yields. TCI is meeting this challenge with an ambitious project in Bihar and Chhattisgarh aimed at reducing the greenhouse gas emissions associated with agriculture while boosting productivity, improving farmer livelihoods, and making food systems more resilient to changing climates.

Supporting climate-smart agriculture

Based on research findings from the field, TCI is working to provide Indian policymakers with evidence and support for effective policies that increase agricultural production through climate-friendly practices.

In Bihar, TCI researchers are identifying rice production zones where emissions can be lowered and productivity increased through more efficient fertilizer usage, while researchers in both Bihar and Chhattisgarh are pinpointing areas well-suited for diversification away from rice in favor of more sustainable, nutritious crops, like pulses and oilseeds. To help policymakers act on this evidence, researchers are using the existing policy architecture to develop effective frameworks and models.

In addition to policy support in Bihar and Chhattisgarh, TCI is building a nationwide “blueprint” for climate-smart agriculture throughout India.

A roadmap for reduced emissions in Bihar

TCI’s support for crop diversification and precision nutrient management in Bihar is rooted in existing research in the state, through which researchers assessed the viability of several climate-smart interventions:

• Increasing agricultural production, promoting crop diversification, and improving farmer livelihoods through multi-use, community-based agrivoltaics
• Achieving optimal water and nutrient usage in rice production systems with integrated management practices
• Increasing livestock productivity and reducing associated emissions through advanced artificial insemination and methane-reducing feed supplements

Climate resilience through diversification in Chhattisgarh

Rice is one of India’s most important crops, but its production is a significant contributor of the greenhouse gases fueling climate change. In Chhattisgarh, TCI worked with the development organization PRADAN to illuminate pathways to diversify agriculture toward non-rice crops in order to improve climate resiliency, increase farm incomes, and encourage healthy dietary practices.

As part of this effort, TCI and PRADAN conducted a randomized controlled trial of 10,000 households in southern Chhattisgarh to assess the effectiveness of different triggers incentivizing and enabling the production of non-rice crops that are nutritious and better agro-climatically suited to the state, including pulses, oilseeds, and millets. While the systemic barriers to diversification are generally understood, the policies that could catalyze large-scale adoption are not as well known. The trial assessed three interventions:

• Knowledge sharing to inform farmers of the benefits of diversification and climate-smart practices
• Market support to facilitate access to seeds, manures, and processing infrastructure for non-rice crops
• Irrigation enhancement through community-based solar and lift irrigation systems to enable crop diversification

Confronting two crises

India is the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases. At the 2026 United Nations Climate Change Conference, India pledged to reduce its overall emissions to net-zero by 2070. Complicating that task is the country’s simultaneous need to address widespread malnutrition among its growing population. Agriculture is responsible for nearly 20 percent of India’s emissions, with livestock and rice cultivation its biggest contributors.

This issue is not unique to India. Globally, agriculture and allied activities contribute to around 30 percent of overall greenhouse gas emissions. An FAO report indicates that between 638 and 720 million people faced hunger in 2024, a number that will grow as the population increases to an expected 9 billion people by 2050. To feed a population of that size, global food production will have to increase by 70 percent. Without a change in practices, agriculture’s environmental footprint will increase as well.

A further complication to this challenge is the impact of climate change on agriculture itself. Recent research suggests that global crop yields could fall by 8 percent by 2050. For every additional degree Celsius of warming, the world’s ability to produce food falls by 120 calories per person per day.

To overcome the crises of climate change and food insecurity, emissions will have to be reduced while agricultural productivity is increased. This presents an enormous challenge, but by adopting a holistic approach, it is not insurmountable. Through the Zero-Hunger, Zero-Carbon Food Systems project, TCI hopes to show that the ability of the agricultural sector to achieve “net-zero carbon” en route to zero hunger is both desirable and achievable.

Featured image: A demonstration of agrivoltaics—the use of the same agricultural land for both growing crops and generating solar power. (Photo by Milorad Plavsic/TCI)