ITC working on short-term action to mitigate impact of a harsh summer

Diversified conglomerate ITC is working on a set of short-term action to mitigate any impact of a harsh summer projected in the country.

The company’s agronomy teams have worked out region-specific practices to minimise the impact of heat waves and unseasonal rains through a host of multi-dimensional measures.

Some of these include crop cycle approach, popularising climate resilient varieties, promoting climate smart agriculture and contingency planning, ITC Chairman and Managing Director, Sanjiv Puri, said, on the sidelines of the annual regional meeting of the Confederation of Indian Industry (Eastern Region).

The digital super app, ITCMAARS, together with the farmer producer organisation (FPO) ecosystem supported by field demonstrations under Choupal Pradarshan Khets (demonstration plots) further enabled farmers to adopt the recommended practices to combat the threat of climate change.

Extreme weather conditions are a reality and recognising this, ITC has been working on climate risk modelling for a while. “We are identifying hotspots, and based on the nature of problems, taking mitigating steps. A very localised action has to be taken,” Puri said.

A team of experts is working using big data analytics. “We are piloting it on certain agri crop value chains,” Puri said.

The climate risk modelling for pulpwood and wheat value chains has already been completed. It is underway for crops such as potato, spices and rice among others. Agri is an important back-end for ITC’s different businesses — from tobacco, paperboards to FMCG.

Even before the modelling, Puri said, the company worked to build resilience in agriculture with climate smart agriculture, which reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and increased farmer income. The climate smart agriculture programme is aimed at de-risking farmers from erratic weather events.

According to an assessment in 2021, it has been able to reduce GHG emissions of select crops by 13-66 per cent; net returns of farmers increased 93-99 per cent over a period of five years from 2016-2021.

But even as the country is headed for a hot summer, Puri pointed out that so far, government surveys show that there is no major impact. “So, realisations in rural areas should be better.”

“As far as industry is concerned, rural should do better. Urban, we would like to see it sustain at an industry level,” he said.

At a general level, he said, the only monitorable area was the impact of the external sector.

But on commodity inflation, Puri said it was cooling off and the worst was behind.