Can adoption of climate resilient management practices achieve carbon neutrality in traditional green revolution states of Punjab and Haryana?

Decreasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and enhancing soil carbon (C) sequestration in cropland are necessary to achieve carbon neutrality at national scale. The major objective of this study is to quantify the GHG mitigation potential of adopted climate resilient (CR) practices in CR villages using Ex-ACT tool developed by Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Intensively cultivated area of Punjab and Haryana was selected for carrying out this study. In both the states, villages were selected by considering the climate for past 30 years. In the selected villages, a set of CR practices were implemented in annuals, perennials, irrigated rice, fertilizer use, land use change and livestock and quantified the GHG mitigation potential in these villages for next twenty years. The tool predicted that the CR practices adopted were successful in enhancing the overall sink (carbon balance) in all the study villages. The villages of Punjab had recorded higher mitigation potential as compared to the villages of Haryana. The overall sink potential in these villages ranged from -354 to -38309 Mg CO-eq. The change in sink potential varied from 3.16 to 112% with lowest in Radauri and highest in Badhauchhi kalan village. The sink potential got doubled in Badhauchhi kalan village due to stopping rice straw burning and increase in area under perennials by 25%. The source potential varied from 6.33 to -7.44% across the study villages. Even with the implementation of NICRA, there was increase in source by 5.58 and 6.33% in Killi Nihal Singh Wala and Radauri due to irrigated rice, land use change and livestock. Majorly, rice straw burning was seen in most of the study villages, yet, with proper residue management and adoption of CR practices (mainly intermittent flooding) in rice cultivation resulted in emissions reduction up to 5-26% with enhanced productivity up to 15-18%, which can be considered for scaling up. Fertilizer management reduced the emissions by average of 13% across the study villages. Farm gate emission intensity per ton of milk and rice recorded highest emission intensity compared to annuals and perennials suggesting strict implementation of CR practices in rice cultivation and livestock sector. Implementation and scaling up of CR practices could potentially reduce the emissions and make the village C negative in intensive rice-wheat production system.