A two-day national workshop on ACASA, a collaborative project between ICAR and BISA-CIMMYT was inaugurated by Dr S.K. Chaudhari, DDG (NRM), ICAR, New Delhi at ICAR-CRIDA on 21 Aug 2023. The project attempts to compile or generate geographically disaggregated information on commodity- and region-specific climate hazards, risks, and adaptation options along with their feasibility for the countries in South Asia. With ICAR-CRIDA as the lead institute, six other ICAR institutes viz., ICAR-IARI, ICAR-NDRI, ICAR-NRRI, ICAR-IIFSR, ICAR-NIASM and ICAR-CIBA are partners of the project. In the inaugural function,

Dr V.K. Singh, Director, ICAR-CRIDA welcomed the dignitaries, commodity experts and stakeholders and gave a brief background of the project and purpose of the workshop. Dr. Arun K Joshi, MD, BISA, in his remarks, emphasized the need to adapt to changing climate through partnerships and collaborations.

Dr P.K. Aggarwal, Regional Program Leader, BISA presented the background and overview of the project and Dr C.A. Rama Rao, Principal Investigator, ACASA-India presented the methods to be deployed and expected outputs from the project. Various stakeholders representing financial institutions, private sector, government and non-governmental agencies are participating the workshop.

Shri Sukanta Sahoo, DGM, Climate Change Vertical, NABARD remarked that the atlas would be able to identify different time zones of risk and vulnerability.

Dr B.K. Parida, AVP & Chief Agronomist, Coromandel International Limited lauded the granularity approach being undertaken in the project. He also expressed his willingness to collaborate if soil nutrition is considered in the atlas.

Dr S.K. Chaudhari, DDG (NRM) was the chief guest of the inaugural session. He congratulated the team for conducting stakeholder workshop in the very beginning of the project and opined that this will lead the project in the right direction. He remarked that the outcome from the project will be very helpful in the current scenario, where many Indian states are planning and implementing NICRA-like projects to combat climate change.

The session ended with the formal vote of thanks proposed by Dr B.M.K. Raju, Principal Scientist, ICAR-CRIDA.