| Summary: | Arid and semiarid regions face critical challenges in transitioning toward sustainable agri-food systems that meet food and livelihood requirements while preserving environmental integrity. Western Rajasthan, characterized by meager and unpredictable precipitation, extreme temperatures, poor soil fertility, and heightened water scarcity, exemplifies these challenges. The region experiences recurrent droughts, land degradation, declining productivity, malnutrition, and institutional weaknesses. Despite past community resilience through various coping strategies, current climate change trends indicate increasing vulnerability. An integrated farming systems approach offers promising pathways for sustainable intensification by optimizing cropping patterns, enhancing water use efficiency through traditional systems like khadins and micro-irrigation, developing common pasture resources, and strengthening livestock value chains. Critical interventions include promoting regenerative agriculture principles, harnessing agri-voltaic farming systems, establishing payment mechanisms for ecosystem services, improving mechanization and digital innovations, and strengthening market linkages. Success requires context-specific strategies, participatory community approaches, institutional strengthening, policy coherence, and recognition of the region's unique biodiversity and traditional knowledge systems for building resilience under changing climatic conditions.
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