The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (Icrisat) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST) recently launched a plant protection project to carry out a research on diseases and insect pests that cause huge crop loss.

Diseases and insect pests cause a crop loss of over $8.48 billion annually and this loss is likely to grow at least four-fold under the climate change scenario, an Icrisat official said.

Considering this threat to sustainable food production, particularly in the dry land areas of India and other developing countries, Icrisat and DST have launched the project under the Centre of Excellence on Climate Change for Plant Protection (CoE-CCRPP) at the Icrisat headquarters on the outskirts of the city here.

The project, funded by the DST Climate Change programme, is for a three-year period, with an overall goal to establish facilities and provide opportunities for Icrisat and partner institutes to conduct research-for-development initiative on climate change and its impact on diseases and insect pests of legumes in the semi-arid tropics.

The DST-ICRISAT partnership would have a major bearing on environment-friendly, pest-mitigation strategies for the sustainable production of grain legumes and in increasing food security in the dry land areas, particularly in regions most vulnerable to climate change, the official said.

Dr Suresh Pande, Icrisat Principal Investigator of CoE-CCRPP, said global warming and climate change would lead to emergence of more aggressive pest and pathogen populations, resulting in heavy losses by pest and disease epidemics, particularly in grain legumes such as chickpea and pigeonpea.

He said the CoE-CCRPP project would serve as the platform in the conduct of targeted research to better understand and mitigate the effects of climate change on plant and pest diseases.

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