Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, Dr P.K. Mishra, on Wednesday, 11 November 2026, called for a deeper integration of scientific research, granular data and evidence-based policymaking to tackle the interconnected crises of climate change, agricultural resilience, food security and nutrition across the Global South. He was addressing the inaugural session of the 20th Annual Meeting of the Environment for Development (EfD) Network at IIM Kozhikode, Kerala, via video conference.

Climate Change as a Cross-Cutting Crisis

Dr. Mishra argued that climate change must no longer be treated solely as an environmental issue, stressing that its consequences reach deep into agricultural productivity, water availability, food prices, public health and livelihoods. He said the policy framing must reflect this complexity rather than compartmentalising the challenge into separate ministerial silos.

He also pushed back against conventional metrics of food security, noting that adequate production volumes alone were insufficient. Ensuring access to affordable, diverse and nutritious diets — including pulses, fruits, vegetables and milk — was equally critical, particularly because climate-related disruptions could simultaneously suppress the availability and affordability of nutrient-rich foods.

Crop Diversification and the Millets Push

Highlighting the case for crop diversification, Dr. Mishra pointed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's initiative in securing the United Nations declaration of 2023 as the International Year of Millets. He said the move helped elevate global awareness of millets' nutritional value and environmental sustainability, promoting their adoption within diversified, climate-resilient food systems.

Separately, he cited assessments under the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR)'s National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) programme, which identified 310 out of 651 agricultural districts in India as highly or very highly vulnerable to climate stress. This, he said, underlined the case for region-specific interventions calibrated to local agro-climatic conditions rather than one-size-fits-all policy templates.

Data Quality Over Data Quantity

On the role of evidence in governance, Dr. Mishra stressed that the priority should not be generating more data, but ensuring that existing information is timely, reliable, comparable and actionable. He called for greater use of disaggregated, district-level datasets covering rainfall patterns, water availability, soil conditions, crop performance and nutritional outcomes.

He advocated integrating administrative records, household surveys, satellite imagery and geospatial information within a framework of common standards and appropriate privacy safeguards. Critically, he said, analytical capacity at state and district levels must be strengthened so that research findings can inform programme implementation, monitoring and resource allocation — not merely produce academic outputs.

India's Climate Commitments and Global Cooperation

Reiterating India's dual objectives of becoming a developed nation by 2047 and achieving Net Zero emissions by 2070, Dr. Mishra said these goals had to be pursued without compromising economic growth, poverty reduction or living standards. He noted that India's updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) for 2031–2035 further sharpened the country's climate ambition.

Looking beyond national borders, he said countries across the Global South shared common vulnerabilities — climate variability, natural resource pressures, shifting agricultural patterns and nutritional insecurity. He argued that platforms such as the EfD Network were well-positioned to bridge academic research and practical policy, facilitate cross-country knowledge exchange and build institutional capacities where they were most needed.