ROLE OF ICT IN THE CLIMATE RESILIENCE OF FARMERS: A PILOT STUDY IN BELGAUM DISTRICT OF KARNATAKA

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1 Role of ICT in the Climate Resilience of Farmers: A Pilot Study in Belgaum District of Karnataka Proceedings of AIPA 2012, INDIA 1 ROLE OF ICT IN THE CLIMATE RESILIENCE OF FARMERS: A PILOT STUDY IN BELGAUM DISTRICT OF KARNATAKA H. Venkatesh 1, R.B. Rajput 1, V.U.M. Rao 2, J.R. Hiremath 1 and S. Shashikumar 3 1 AICRPAM-NICRA, AICRP on Agrometeorology, R.A.R.S., Bijapur (UASD), Karnataka 2 AICRP on Agrometeorology, CRIDA, Hyderabad 3 KVK-NICRA, Birds Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Tukkanatti, Karnataka ABSTRACT In these days of the buzz of climate change, we need to tackle the problem from grassroot level. An attempt in this direction is made through the ICAR network Project on National Initiative on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) under the aegis of the AICRP on Agrometeorology. The weather based advisory service to the farmers is a well-accepted and helpful outreach program. Till 2007, the bulletins were issued through mass media and sent by post, invariably making the bulletin redundant; later on, they were uploaded onto various government websites in addition to the mass media. Still, the farmers are unable to use in a timely manner as most of them have little knowledge of English and ICT. Efficient use of ICT reach the farmers gains confidence for performing the agricultural operations on time. The methodology includes collection of weather forecast of India Meteorological Department (IMD) through , collecting the ground truth on crop and soil status by mobile messages form Field Information Facilitators (FIF) identified for the purpose in every Taluka, preparation of bulletin, and sending it to the Assistant Director of Agriculture of every Taluka, NGOs and FIFs through . The ADAs forward the advisory to the Hobli level officers for further dissemination. The NGOs and FIFs make multiple copies of the advisory and distribute to the farmers, paste them at important places farmers gathering, so that the famers can take immediate action. With these efforts, the farmers who never heard of availability of weather forecast and related advice for field operations have become enthusiastic to be involved with this program. This approach of efficient use of ICT in taking the agromet advisories to the doorstep of the farmers is the first of its kind in India, and its intensification will benefit the farmer manyfold. Keywords: Agrometeorology, Agromet Advisories, Climate Resilient Agriculture, ICT. 1. INTRODUCTION Climate change impacts call for the need to redefine the way in which we understand it and approach to development, overcoming the challenges. Ensuring food security amidst a changing climate is at the top of the agenda of the developing countries. Most importantly, and palpably, is the matter of survival for the millions of farmers, fishers, herders and foresters whose livelihoods are highly vulnerable to the occurrence of extreme events weatherwise and otherwise. The role of emerging tools and technologies, including Information and Communication Technology (ICT) becomes greatly relevant when dealing with climate resilience of farmers. The Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are playing an increasingly important role as enabler of change and transformation within vulnerable contexts. Mobile phones, radio, Internet-based applications and social media are being integrated as part of strategies to adapt to, mitigate, and monitor climate change, especially within agricultural communities. The ICT helps in accessing and processing the information, identifying the problems, making decisions, and thereby identifying effective ways of tackling the problems related to agriculture towards adoption of climate-smart practice resulting in achievement of more resilient production systems. National Initiative on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) is a network project of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) launched in February, The project aims to enhance the resilience of Indian agriculture covering crops, livestock and fisheries to climatic variability and climate change through application of improved production and risk management technologies towards adaptations in vulnerable scenarios. The weather based advisory service to the farmers is a well-accepted and helpful outreach program. Till 2007, the bulletins were issued through mass media and sent by post, invariably making the bulletin redundant; later on, they were uploaded onto various government websites in addition to the mass media. Still, the farmers are unable to use in a timely manner as most of them have little knowledge of English and ICT. Efficient use of ICT helps the farmers gain confidence for performing the agricultural operations on time.

2 2 Agro-Informatics and Precision Agriculture 2012 (AIPA 2012) In order to achieve this, a pilot action force was generated through ICT kiosk for taking a swift action to provide effective Agromet advisories to small and marginal farmers in rainfed and hilly areas of Belgaum district, Karnataka. Belgaum district is agro-climatically divided into three zones i.e. high rainfall Hilly zone, Northern transitional zone and Northern dry zone progressing from south-west to north-east. The normal annual rainfall in the district decreases from more than 1860 mm in Khanapur Taluka in the south-west, to less than 490 mm in Rayabag Taluka in the nort-heast. Climatically, the Taluka Saundatti, Athani, Ramdurg, Raibag and Gokak belong to semi-arid category and the other Taluka namely, Khanapur (humid), Bailhongal, Belgaum, Hukkeri and Chikkodi belong to sub-humid category. Our basic assumption is: If we need to tell the farmer that he should be prepared to climate change and be climate resilient, we need to prepare him to face the challenges posed by the present day s climate variability and weather extremes. We need to build confidence in him to face the weather related problems including abiotic and biotic stress factors. This can be done by reaching him before any adverse weather events, and provide suitable advice. Our efforts have been in this direction. 2. DEVELOPMENT AND DISSEMINATION OF AGROMET ADVISORIES The mode of transfer of information through ICT among the various stakeholders in Agromet advisory bulletin preparation, dissemination and adoption is shown in Figure 1. Fig. 1: Flow of Information through ICT for Dissemination of Agromet Advisories 2.1 Weather Forecast Inputs Five-day weather forecast for Belgaum district sent through by the State level Met Centre, Bengaluru of India Meteorological Department, Government of India every Tuesday and Friday around a.m. 2.2 Local Weather and Crop Information Taluka level information on weather prevailed was collected from respective Taluka Offices and crop information in two selected villages of individual Talukas is obtained through SMS or cell phone call every Monday for sub-humid Talukas and every Thursday for Semi-arid Talukas from the Field Information Facilitators (FIFs) appointed for the purpose in each Taluka. 2.3 Preparation of weather based Agromet advisory bulletin The compiled information on past week s weather conditions, weather forecast for the next five days given for the district as a whole and the Talukawise ground truth provided by the FIFs are the basis on which the, Agromet advisories were developed by AICRPAM-NICRA in consultation with KVK-NICRA of Birds KVK Tukkanatti. Here also, telephonic discussions are made rather than formal face to face interactions, so as to save time and reduce avoidable inconvenience to the resource persons.

3 Role of ICT in the Climate Resilience of Farmers: A Pilot Study in Belgaum District of Karnataka Dissemination of Agromet Advisory Bulletins These bulletins were immediately circulated among the respective FIFs, Assistant Directors of Agriculture (ADAs) of Karnataka State Department of Agriculture, Tahsildar s office and NGOs of each Taluka through . The NGOs and FIFs make multiple copies of the advisory and distribute to the selected progressive farmers and paste them at important places of farmers gathering as well as schools in the village. The ADAs on the other hand forward the bulletins to the officials at Raitha Samparka Kendras (RSKs) for advising the farmers. 3. RESULTS 3.1 Weather Forecasts Success of an agromet advisory depends to a considerable extent on the accuracy of weather forecasts. Monthly total of 5 day daily rainfall forecasts received through from IMD, Bangalore for Belgaum district were compared with actual Talukawise monthly rainfall and presented in Figure 2. Since the district comprises two distinct climate types, the comparisons are made for semi-arid and sub-humid regions separately. It is noticed that the forecast values were very high in all Talukas of sub-humid and semi-arid Taluka compared to actual and normal values. Fig. 2: Comparison of Monthly Rainfall: Normal vs. Forecast vs. Actual: Belgaum District The values of pentad rainfall forecast of Tuesdays for the district were compared with observed pentad rainfall of sub-humid Talukas. The values of pentad rainfall forecast of Fridays for the district were compared with observed pentad rainfall of Semiarid Talukas. They are graphically presented in Figure 3. It is noticed that rainfall forecasts received on Tuesdays do not match with the actual observations for semiarid Talukas, while the forecast rainfall is comparable with the actual of subhumid Talukas for the forecast issued on Fridays. The dry spell that prevailed during August was not satisfied by the forecasts; this explains why the farmers are in the need of Taluka level forecast. Fig. 3: Comparison of Forecast and Actual Pentad Rainfall for Forecasts of Tuesdays and Fridays 3.2 Local Weather and Crop Information Ground truth of the localised real-time extreme weather like fog, hailstorm, etc. and crop information in two selected villages of individual Talukas is obtained through SMS/cell phone every Monday for Sub-humid Talukas and every

4 4 Agro-Informatics and Precision Agriculture 2012 (AIPA 2012) Thursday for semi-arid Talukas from the FIFs. The crop information includes crops, growth stages of different crops, stress faced by various crops both abiotic and biotic and is received through cell-phone interaction with NICRA Office. Photographs (Figure 4) of any problem faced by the crops in the field are sent through . Fig. 4: Photographs on Status of Crops Sent by FIFs through 3.3 Dissemination of Agromet Advisory Bulletins The bulletins are received and pasted by the FIFs at places of gathering in villages have evoked interesting observations. The farmers get ready to take immediate action in the field, as well as visit the place every week to know about further advice if necessary. This has also enabled school children to know about weather based farming operations as they are the key to success for climate resilience in the futures. The entire process of dissemination covers only a couple of hours to reach the farmers, which otherwise would take overnight, at the minimum. This mode of transfer of information is the quickest to guide the farmers. 3.4 Feedback on Agromet Advisories The efforts of our using ICT were evaluated by getting feedback from the selected progressive farmers to whom the agromet advisories were distributed by the FIFs. This was done by both telephonic interactions and personal visits to their fields: Information provided on management of pest and disease is very useful. Taluka level forecasts will be more helpful. Voice SMS is suggested. Information on weather required through SMS. Temperature forecast requires improvement. For the first time we are knowing about weather and weather based advisory services. Their inputs are considered for further improvement in the project activities. An was received from the Assistant Director of Agriculture, Hukkeri Taluka, complimenting the Agromet advisories sent to his office. The same is given in Figure 5. Fig. 5: An of Appreciation from Assistant Director of Agriculture

5 Role of ICT in the Climate Resilience of Farmers: A Pilot Study in Belgaum District of Karnataka Capacity Building of Farmers While ICT plays a great role in delivering the advisories to the farmers on time, in the long run to make the farmers prepared for the eventualities of climate change, it is important that the message is conveyed to many people at a time. Hence we conducted farmers awareness programmes towards capacity building of farmers to face climate change. With a futuristic outlook, participation of school children in awareness programs was encouraged. Nearly 350 farmers participated in four such programmes. We invited the beneficiary farmers to give their experiences to the participant farmers so that they too are encouraged for involvement in the action force on weather based farming, which ultimately would lead to climate resilience (Figure 6a & 6b). We conducted the programmes in villages rather than in towns or cities. Fig. 6a: Awareness about Crops and Weather in Schools, Market Places, etc. Fig. 6b: Farmer Awareness Programme Conducted in Different Talukas of Belgaum District 4. IMPACT OF THE ICT BASED AGROMET ADVISORIES Of utmost priority in any agricultural activity is timeliness of various field operations from pre-sowing to post-harvest. In our endeavour towards attaining this, the progressive farmers got the weather forecast and the Agromet advisories as soon as they were developed. We have reached the farmers on time through a network of local personnel every week, on time, with a weather forecast and the Agromet advisory. We tell them about the weather forecasts, climate change, weather based agro advisories. By preparing the Agromet advisories separately for individual Talukas based on ground level information from the Taluka concerned, the advice the farmers get is more realistic. State Department of Agriculture Offices and NGOs have become active players in this program. Every study, no matter how well it is conducted, has limitations. In spite of these, we have created awareness about weather and climate, their importance in agriculture, availability of weather forecasts, and how they can be utilized in taking up various agricultural operations. With these efforts, the farmers who never heard of availability of weather forecast and related advice for field operations have become enthusiastic to be involved with this program. Dr. Swaminathan says each village should have monsoon managers identified to tackle the problems of weather and agriculture. We feel we are moving in that direction. The FIFs in our project are similar to the monsoon managers suggested by Dr. Swaminathan. However, they need to be trained in a proper way (Swaminathan, 2009) for upgrading

6 6 Agro-Informatics and Precision Agriculture 2012 (AIPA 2012) their skills of crop management in the growing season. This can be upscaled efficiently by increasing the network of FIFs, uploading the web than using the cell phones by FIFs, uploading the advisories by the AICRPAM-NICRA on the web for further downloading and dissemination at village level by the FIFs. This will be a big step in promoting resilience of the farmers to climate change considerations. 5. CONCLUSION We are convinced that, with better and higher resolution forecasts in future, the farmers will definitely be very much pro-active to weather and weather based farming to enhance their capability towards climate smart and, therefore, climate resilient agriculture. This approach of efficient use of ICT in taking the weather based advisories to the doorstep of the farmers is the first of its kind in India, and upscaling it will benefit the farmer manyfold. REFERENCE Swaminathan, M.S., 2009, Monsoon Management in the Era of Climate Change. The Hindu, July 13, 2009.