Scientists to discuss ways to 'climate-proof' crops*

HYDERABAD, India, Nov 21 (AFP) Nov 21, 2007

Scientists will discuss ways to protect crops from climate change and
boost farm produce when they gather in this Indian city this week,
organisers of the meet said Wednesday.

Experts from 15 international agricultural research centres will discuss
how to "climate-proof" crops, at the three-day meet starting Thursday,
said Gopikrishna Warrier, spokesman for the International Crops Research
Institute.

Martin Parry, co-head of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, will attend the event that precedes next
month's global summit on climate change in the Indonesian resort island
of Bali.

Ahead of that summmit, scientists and environmental groups are mounting
pressure for more action by governments to fight global warming.

In Hyderabad, Parry will talk of the implications of climate change for
crop yields, global food supply and risk of hunger, said ICRISAT, a
non-profit research group.

Scientists will also discuss at the India meet research aimed at
fighting climate change and boosting farm productivity, ICRISAT said.

A billion people in the world are vulnerable to climate change,
desertification, land degradation, water scarcity and shortage of fossil
fuels, according to Hyderabad-based ICRISAT.

India accounts for about 25.93 percent of the world's population and
China 16.66 percent, with Asia the hub where "the poor, undernourished
and the vulnerable live," according to the organisation.

Coping with climate change and desertification may be "next to
impossible" for poor dryland farming communities unless they are made
more resilient, it said recently.