Enhancing adaptive capacity to manage climate risk in agriculture through community-led climate information centres

ABSTRACT

Using participatory action research methods, we co-developed climate risk management approaches with participating farmers as part of a large project in India on climate adaptation to climate change in Asia (ACCA). The key components of this work involved village level meteorological data recording and reporting, formation and development of farmer climate clubs, on-farm participatory research testing a range of sowing and irrigation practices in response to weather patterns, and preparation and dissemination of agro-meteorological advisories. This research catalysed the development of the CLimate Information Centre concept (CLIC), further evolving into the development of an ICT platform of software and hardware that integrated the ACCA project results, biweekly agro-meteorological advisory bulletins and static agronomy information. An evaluation of the CLICs was undertaken based on a survey of 330 farmers in eight CLICs villages in Telangana state in southern India. The evaluation considered aspects such as the frequency of visits to CLICs, farmer perceptions on usefulness of information, any changes in knowledge and practice due to CLICs visits, and satisfaction with the CLICs as a source of information. On average 80 percent of the surveyed farmers had visited CLICs during the period. Farmers highlighted the important contribution of the agronomy videos they watched, access to agro-meteorological bulletins, information on pests, and weather forecast information. These contributed to various types of benefits they derived including an average cost savings of US$ 4 – 64 per hectare/year. While the current version of CLICs has shown promise and relevance for small holders, they need to be further developed into small business centres that function as a knowledge and provision hub for various agriculture inputs and providing climate information as an important service. This will serve as a self-sustaining financial model for CLICs rather than climate information as the only source of information service that is currently the case.

Acknowledgements

This work is part of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and CSIRO funded project on ‘Developing multi-scale climate change adaptation strategies for farming communities in Cambodia, Laos, Bangladesh and India’ (‘ACCA’ project- LWR/2008/019). ACIAR and CSIRO are acknowledged for their support. Farmers in the study villages participated enthusiastically and shared their experiences with the project team for which we are very thankful. We thank the two anonymous reviewers whose comments helped improve the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research.

Notes on contributors

Uday Nidumolu

Dr Uday Nidumolu is Principal Research Scientist and Research leader in Climate Smart Agriculture at CSIRO based in South Australia. His work focuses on linking climate science (short-term weather, seasonal and multi-decadal climate change scales) with food systems analysis to support decision making processes from farmer to policy levels to achieve sustainable development outcomes.

Ravindra Adusumilli

Ravindra Adusumilli is a Director of the NGO WASSAN. He has over 25 years of experience in participatory watershed development and water management. His interests are in scaling research for development outcomes to improve agriculture productivity and livelihoods.

Chiranjeevi Tallapragada

Chiranjeevi Tallapragada is a Chief Economist at LNRMI. Her areas of interests and expertise are in economic analysis, policy development, and research into livelihoods, climate adaptation, farm typologies, capacity building, stakeholder engagement and integrated research.

Christian Roth

Christian Roth has over 30 years of research experience in tropical land and water management. His focus has been integration science, climate adaptation, rice-based farming systems in Asia, research for development, and principles underpinning impact science

Zvi Hochman

Zvi Hochman is a Senior Principal Research Scientist and a Team Leader in CSIRO, Agriculture and Food. He is a systems agronomist with expertise in managing climate-related crop production risk and in exploring productivity frontiers in rain fed cropping systems.

G. Sreenivas

G Sreenivas is the Director of the Agro Climate Research Centre at PJTS Agricultural University in Hyderabad. His expertise is in the area of agro-meteorology, agronomy, crop modelling.

D. Raji Reddy

D. Raji Reddy recently retired as Director of Research at PJTS Agricultural University in Hyderabad. His expertise is in the area of agro-meteorology, agronomy, research management and policy.

V. Ratna Reddy

V. Ratna Reddy is the Director of LNRMI. He has 30 years' experience in natural resource economics and management, impact evaluation, watershed and water resource management and agricultural policy development.