Few days ago I have posted about shifting rainfall pattern (climate change) and its impact on environment. Today I have found article related to how to tolerate climate change and resilience it. I think this is very useful article related to climate change and its mitigation. Environmental changes may affect many different aspects of agricultural production. With greater climate variability, shifting temperature and precipitation patterns, and other global change components, we expect to see a range of crop and ecosystem responses that will affect integral agricultural processes. Such effects include changes in nutrient cycling and soil moisture, as well as shifts in pest occurrences and plant diseases, all of which will greatly influence food production and food security. Recognition, that climate change could have negative consequences for agricultural production, has generated a desire to build resilience into agricultural systems which will continue to provide a vital service such as food production if challenged by severe drought or by a large reduction in rainfall.

One rational and cost-effective method may be the implementation of increased agricultural crop diversification, which can improve resilience in a variety of ways: by engendering a greater ability to suppress pest outbreaks and dampen pathogen transmission, which may worsen under future climate scenarios, as well as by buffering crop production from the effects of greater climate variability and extreme events.

Common advantages found in most diverse systems:

• reduced disease, weed and insect pressures
• reduced need for nitrogen fertilizer
• reduced erosion
• increased soil fertility and increased yields
• diversification also can provide habitat for beneficial insects and reduces pest numbers by rendering host crops less apparent for colonization by pests
• increases economic stability by reducing financial risk, stabilizing farm income, and increasing choice of farm practices
• provide year round employment to farm labor and farmers

The importance of horticulture in improving the productivity of land, generating employment, improving economic conditions of the farmers and entrepreneurs, enhancing exports and, above all, providing nutritional security to the people, is widely acknowledged. Moreover, with burgeoning population the pressure on land have been building up immensely, and day by day landholdings are shrinking. Thus technologies providing maximum returns per unit space are present day demand. In such conditions protected cultivation seems only surviving tool, where per unit production is several times higher than open cultivation. Also, protected cultivation is powerful tool against the climatic adversities. Thus, such tools can provide an alternative source of income to  people resulting in their socio-economical upliftment.

Thus, various reasons/benefits for including horticulture crops in present cropping system are:

1. 1. Per Unit Area Yield is high: As compared to the field crops, per hectare yield of horticulture crops is very high. From an fruit area of land more yield is obtained e.g. paddy gives a maximum yield of only 30 q/ha, while Banana gives 300 to 500 q/ha, Pine apple 450 q/ha and Grapes 90 - 150 q/ha. In present shortage of food and scarcity of land by growing fruits more food can be produced.
2. High Returns per Unit Area: From one unit area of land more income will be obtained e.g. Well-kept orchard of apple, grapes and sweet orange can give more than Rs. 50,000 per ha as net income.
3. A Free Grower/Labor Remains Engaged for the Whole: An opportunity for maintaining labors throughout the year like the cereals where one cannot keep himself and employ the labors during the slack season.
4. Best Utilization of Waste Land: Some fruit crops can offer best utilization of waste land crops like wood apple, custard apple, karonda, litchi etc. can be grown in such areas.
5. More Calories are obtained per Unit Area: To meet the annual calories requirements of food per year one would have to cultivate about 0.44 ha of wheat or 0.03 ha of banana or 0.06 ha of mango for satisfying once need. Thus mango produces about 9 times more food energy than the wheat produced per unit area.
   6. Raw Material for Industries: Fruit farming is the base for several industries like canning, essential oils etc. which in turn provide work for more people.
   7. Use of Undulating Lands: Fruit growing can be practiced in places where the gradient is uneven or where the land is undulating and agronomical crops cannot be cultivated. In Konkan region, mango and cashew are cultivated on large scales on hilly and hill back area.
    8. Fruits and vegetables are the important energy giving material to the human body