Entertainment » OtherPosted at: Feb 18 2016 5:10PM ShareICRISAT wins two CSR AwardsHyderabad, Feb 18 (UNI) For its science-backed development the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) received awards in two categories — Accounting for climate change and Community development at the ABP News – Global CSR Excellence & Leadership Awards. These were announced during the World CSR Congress held in Mumbai, India on February 17. Adaptation and mitigation options for sustainable livelihoods is a great example of how climate-smart agriculture can achieve short-and-long-term sustainability in agricultural development while continuing climate change mitigation. To do this ICRISAT adapted climate resilient crop cultivars such as short-duration chickpea, wilt resistant pigeonpea hybrids and short-duration groundnuts that can survive continuous drought. “ICRISAT has developed a pool of climate-smart agricultural practices that has been scaled up and shared with the agricultural community through participatory and partnership research approaches by the ICRISAT Development Centre supported by a number of corporate donors through CSR and the state and national governments,”according to ICRISAT Development Center Director Dr Suhas P Wani here today. This model of participatory watershed management is easily scalable and development agencies are finding it very useful in their day to day work. The programs implemented in different regions of India, Thailand, Vietnam, and China have shown significant improvement in all areas: productivity of crops increased by 43 to 67 per cent, cropping intensity increased by 27 to 60 per cent, surface and groundwater availability increased by 31 to 52 per cent, runoff reduced by 35 to 59 per cent and soil loss reduced by 41 to 68 per cent. This has led to a rejuvenation of degraded lands and a better quality of life for famers in the region. MORE UNI VV VV AK1709