Delivering context specific, climate informed agro-advisories at scale: A case study of iSAT, an ICT linked platform piloted with rainfed groundnut farmers in a semi-arid environment

Ramaraj, A P and Rao, K P C and Kumar, G K and Ugalechumi, K and Sujatha, P and Rao, S A and Dhulipala, R K and Whitbread, A M (2023) Delivering context specific, climate informed agro-advisories at scale: A case study of iSAT, an ICT linked platform piloted with rainfed groundnut farmers in a semi-arid environment. Climate Services, 31. 01-14. ISSN 2405-8807

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Abstract

The influence of climate and weather-based advisories in planning and managing agricultural systems under highly variable conditions was evaluated to understand the potential benefits and challenges associated with the use of probabilistic climate and weather information. A pilot study, conducted with 720 farmers in Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh, India over 3 cropping seasons in the period 2017–2020, used a semi-automated decision support tool, the “intelligent agricultural Systems Advisory Tool – iSAT” to generate and disseminate pre- and in-season advisories by integrating insights from historical trends in climate, current weather and climate and weather forecasts. The pre-season advisory was based on the seasonal climate forecast and aimed at improving the preparedness of farmers for the forthcoming season. The in-season advisories were aimed at providing advice on the various farm operations where weather may play a role in management, i.e., land preparation, timing of planting and harvesting, crop management etc. After piloting the advisory system over the 3 cropping systems, a survey was conducted to evaluate how and what operations were influenced by the advisories and how well iSAT performed in developing and disseminating context-specific advisories through the season. The results have indicated that the advisories have influenced both strategic and tactical management decisions made by farmers. Strategic decisions on crop diversification are evident from land allocation in the treatment compared to the control villages. The influence of tactical farm decisions varied between operations, villages and years. Overall, 80% of the farmers used the information for making decisions on harvesting, 79% for sowing while 65% of farmers used it for land preparation. Advisory information has impacted crop productivity positively, with increases in the climate-informed villages of between 1 and 56% over the uninformed. The results further indicate that the farmers considered advisories more useful during the normal and below normal seasons as compared to above normal seasons.

Item Type:	Article
Divisions:	RP-Market Institutions and Policies
CRP:	UNSPECIFIED
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Climate services, Co-designed, Decision making, Groundnut Strategic, Tactical, Climate risk management
Subjects:	Others > Climate Risk Others > Semi-Arid Tropics Mandate crops > Groundnut
Depositing User:	Mr Nagaraju T
Date Deposited:	26 Jun 2023 06:47
Last Modified:	26 Jun 2023 06:47
URI:	http://oar.icrisat.org/id/eprint/12120
Official URL:	https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/...
Projects:	UNSPECIFIED
Funders:	Earth System Science Organization, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India, CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), The World Bank
Acknowledgement:	The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support given by the Earth System Science Organization, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India (IITM/MM-II/ICRISAT/2018/IND-11 and IITM/ MM-II/CRIDA-ICRISAT-IIPR /2018/IND-9) to conduct this research under Monsoon Mission II. From 2017-2020, additional financial support of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) carried out with support from the CGIAR Trust Fund and through bilateral funding agreements (for details, visit https://ccafs.cgiar.org/donors) is also acknowledged. The World Bankfunded AICCRA project (Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa) Project ID 173398 is acknowledged for funding the involvement of Anthony Whitbread in this study. The involvement of Jacob Emanuel Joseph, Andrew Paul Smith, M.D.M. Kadiyala, Elias Khan, Kavitha Kasala, Sudha Rani Arabandi and Ragini Rayalla at various stages of this study are gratefully acknowledged.
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