The new El Nino event is underway and might be expected to intensify between July and September, raising fresh concerns about agricultural production worldwide. For India, where agriculture remains one of the country’s largest economic sectors and supports the livelihoods of millions, this is not merely a weather forecast; rather, it is a test of the nation’s food security and climate resilience.
History offers a sobering reminder: during warm ENSO phases, as suggested by researchers such as R. Selvaraju and co-authors, India’s rice production has declined by an average of 3.4 million tonnes, while drought conditions have disrupted yields across major crops.
Hence, I believe that India’s response to climate-driven agricultural stress must operate at two levels: the field, where water management determines crop survival, and the genome, where resilience is encoded. Israel, a country that has transformed arid landscapes into productive farmland, offers valuable lessons on both fronts.
The question is no longer whether India needs these lessons, but whether it is prepared to adopt them at the scale and speed that climate change demands.
Israel’s agricultural transformation began with a deceptively simple idea. In 1959, Simcha Blass and his son Yeshayahu developed drip irrigation, a system that delivers water directly to the plant’s root zone with minimal losses through evaporation or runoff. Today, drip irrigation covers roughly three-quarters of Israel’s irrigated farmland, enabling remarkable agricultural productivity despite severe water scarcity. The principle is simple: every drop of water should serve a purpose.
India has already begun benefiting from this innovation. Since entering the Indian market in the 1990s, Israeli company Netafim has helped farmers shift away from conventional flood irrigation, which wastes significant quantities of water. Precision irrigation systems have reduced water use by up to 50 per cent while increasing crop yields by 20 to 40 per cent. More importantly, over 40 Indo-Israeli Centres of Excellence across several states have become demonstration farms and knowledge hubs, training more than 3.6 lakh farmers in drip irrigation, fertigation, and protected cultivation.
Precision irrigation is not a substitute for rainfall in entirely rain-fed regions. Wherever irrigation infrastructure exists, however, it can dramatically improve water-use efficiency, allowing farmers to produce more with every available drop during drought years. El Nino fundamentally alters the urgency of this transition. Precision irrigation is no longer simply an option for improving efficiency; it has become an essential pillar of climate-resilient agriculture. The longer India delays expanding these technologies, the greater the risk that future climate shocks will outpace its capacity to respond.
Technology at the field level, however, is only half the solution. The other lies inside the plant itself. Scientific research from around the world has consistently shown that one lesson has emerged: plants cannot overcome poor water management through genetics alone, nor can irrigation systems fully compensate for crops that lack resilience under stress. The future of agriculture depends on integrating both approaches.
Water scarcity and nutrient availability are deeply interconnected at the molecular level. As soil moisture declines, nutrient movement slows, reducing the plant’s ability to absorb nitrogen even when it is available. This can trigger hormonal and genetic responses involving phytohormones such as auxin and brassinosteroids, which regulate root architecture, cell division, and elongation. Understanding these pathways allows scientists to develop crop varieties genetically better equipped to withstand water and nutrient stress. Using tools such as CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing, transcriptomics, and high-resolution imaging, researchers are identifying genes that could enable rice, wheat, and tomato to maintain productivity under adverse climatic conditions.
According to my forward-looking assessment, this is precisely where India and Israel can build a deeper scientific partnership. Israeli institutions such as the Technion and the Volcani Centre have made important advances in stress-responsive gene networks, precision fertigation, and digital agriculture.
India, meanwhile, possesses exceptional strengths in plant genomics, molecular biology, and crop breeding through institutions such as the National Institute of Plant Genome Research (NIPGR), the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), and agricultural universities. Bringing together Israeli expertise in applied agricultural technologies with India’s strengths in crop genetics can accelerate the development of climate-resilient farming systems tailored to Indian conditions.
India has already demonstrated that progress is possible. During the 2023–24 El Nino episode, food grain production reached 332.30 million tonnes, reflecting the combined impact of improved crop varieties, better agronomic practices, and more resilient farming systems. Yet this success should inspire confidence rather than complacency. Climate projections suggest that extreme weather events will become more frequent and intense, requiring agricultural innovation to move faster than climatic disruption.
According to numerous research papers and projects by experts around the world, I believe that the next phase of India-Israel cooperation must extend beyond irrigation technology to joint research on climate-resilient crops, precision nutrient management, digital agriculture, and molecular breeding.
Collaborative laboratory programmes, researcher exchanges, and translational research can ensure discoveries reach farmers’ fields more rapidly, strengthening not only bilateral scientific cooperation but also India’s long-term food and nutritional security.
At the same time, climate change may continue to test Indian agriculture, and future El Nino events are likely to intensify those challenges. Whether India’s farmers merely endure these shocks or emerge more resilient will depend on the choices we make today in our laboratories, in our irrigation systems, and in the scientific partnerships that transform innovation into practice.
The outcomes of the February 2026 India–Israel Summit, including the elevation of bilateral ties to a Special Strategic Partnership for Peace, Innovation, and Prosperity, and the establishment of the India–Israel Innovation Centre for Agriculture (IINCA), provide a timely framework to translate scientific collaboration into climate-resilient farming solutions. If pursued with sustained commitment, these initiatives can ensure that the future of Indian agriculture is determined not solely by the strength of the monsoon, but by the science, technology, and partnerships we build long before the rains arrive.
(Dr. Amar Pal Singh is a leading plant biologist currently serving as Staff Scientist V at the BRIC-National Institute of Plant Genome Research in New Delhi.)