Across the developing world, policymakers and development practitioners concerned with eliminating hunger and improving nutrition are confronting a stark reality: as the world struggles to stop climate change, the nutritional demands of growing populations will increase agriculture’s carbon footprint, 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 increasing productivity, improving farmer livelihoods, and making food systems more resilient to changing climates.

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.

Creating a roadmap for reduced emissions in Bihar

In the state of Bihar, TCI researchers are working to assess the viability of several climate-smart interventions and generate evidence to support scaling up those interventions through existing agriculture and livelihood programs.

Researchers are focused on three interventions:

• Agrivoltaics: TCI researchers are piloting a multi-use, community-based model of agrivoltaics—the co-location of solar power generation and agricultural production on the same land—to increase agricultural production, promote crop diversity, and improve farmer livelihoods by using solar power for micro-irrigation and other useful applications, such as flour mills.
• Advanced artificial insemination and methane-reducing feed supplements: TCI researchers are assessing the effectiveness of different policy levers, such as subsidies and raising awareness of their benefits, for increasing the adoption of artificial insemination with sex-sorted semen and Harit Dhara feed supplement, technologies that increase livestock productivity and reduce associated emissions.
• Integrated management practices for rice production: TCI-supported research aims to demonstrate the effectiveness of advanced crop management practices like precision fertilizer recommendations and alternate wetting and drying for achieving optimal water and nutrient usage in Bihar’s rice production systems, thereby increasing productivity and reducing nitrogen and methane emissions.

These activities have the potential to reduce net agricultural emissions while improving productivity and farmers’ livelihoods in Bihar, providing a replicable model for other Indian states.

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 the “rice bowl” of Chhattisgarh, TCI is working 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 are conducting 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 interventions being assessed in the trial are:

• Knowledge sharing: Researchers are engaging farmers on the benefits of diversification and climate-smart practices.
• Market support: TCI is facilitating access to seeds, manures, and processing infrastructure for non-rice crops.
• Irrigation enhancement: TCI researchers are promoting community-based solar and lift irrigation systems to enable crop diversification.

The evidence created by this research can be used to create tools and policies supporting a shift to a more diversified, climate-resilient agricultural system.

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)