Importance of Weather forecasting for Climate Smart Agriculture

Importance of Weather forecasting for Climate Smart Agriculture GRAMIN KRISHI MAUSAM SEVA Patna April 7, 2015 Dr. Kirit Shelat – I. A. S. (Retd. ) Executive Chairman - National Council for Climate Change, Sustainable Development & Public Leadership Email ID: drkiritshelat@gmail. com Shalin Shah – M. Tech (Env. Mgmt. ) Honorary Joint Secretary, NCCSD Email ID: shalinshah 65@gmail. com 1

Contents of this presentation • • Key facts – IPCC Fifth Assessment Report National Mission on Sustainable Agriculture Climate Smart Agriculture Weather Forecasting – Need, Objective & Role Case study of farmers NCCSD’s approach & case study Strategy & Conclusion 2

Key facts – IPCC Fifth Assessment Report Climate change impacts are projected to raise global average surface temperature 2. 6– 4. 8 o. C by 2100. Climate related impacts are already reducing crop yields in some parts of the world, a trend that is projected to continue as temperatures rise further. Major impacts are projected on water availability and supply, food security, and agricultural incomes, including shifts in production areas of food and non‐food crops. Combined with increasing food demand, global temperature increases of 4 o. C or more would pose large risks to food security globally and regionally. Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture comprised about 10– 12% of man‐made GHG emissions in 2010. 3

Key facts – IPCC Fifth Assessment Report If temperatures increase by 3 o. C or more, agricultural adaptive capacity is projected to be exceeded in regions closest to the equator. The agricultural sector has significant potential to make cuts in GHG emissions. Farmers can adapt to some changes, but there is a limit to what can be managed. Climate change is projected to: o Increase price volatility for agricultural commodities o Reduce food quality Overall, climate change is projected to cause food production to fall, with lower yields from major crops. These projected impacts will occur in the context of simultaneously rising crop demand. The agricultural industry’s own interests are best served by ambitious approaches to adaptation and to cutting emissions. 4

National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture Government of India has prepared National Action Plan for Climate Change which includes eight missions and one of which is National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture. NAPCC includes • Strengthening existing agricultural and weather insurance mechanisms. • Development and validation of weather derivative models by insurance providers. Ensure access to archival and current weather data for this purpose. • Creation of web‐enabled, regional language based services for facilitation of weather based insurance. • Development of regional database of soil, weather, genotypes, land‐use patterns and water resources. • Model codes on “Droughts, Floods and Good Weather” be prepared bringing out short term and long term mitigation measures, such as ensuring availability of quality seeds, planning for crops/varieties resistant to heat, floods, etc. 5

National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture • Weather insurance products will be developed for managing risks. The compensation is expected to be more realistic and prompt to meet the needs of farmers. • Empowering extension workers farmers, researchers, decision makers to understand the impact of climatic changes and provide timely forecast of weather agriculture situations well in advance. The strategies and programme of actions (POA) outlined in the Mission Document, that was accorded ‘in principle’ approval by Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change (PMCCC) on 23. 09. 2010, aim at promoting sustainable agriculture through a series of adaptation measures focusing on ten key dimensions encompassing Indian agriculture namely; ‘Improved crop seeds, livestock and fish cultures’, ‘Water Use Efficiency’, ‘Pest Management’, ‘Improved Farm Practices’, ‘Nutrient Management’, ‘Agricultural insurance’, ‘Credit support’, ‘Markets’, ‘Access to Information’ and ‘Livelihood diversification’. 6

Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) What CSA means: • It contributes to achievement of sustainable development goals • It integrates – social, economical and environmental development to meet challenge of providing sustainable (a) livelihood to farmers (b) food security to hungry millions, and ( c) eradication of poverty. It is composed of four pillars: • Sustainably increasing agriculture productivity and income • Adapting and building resilience to climate change • Reducing and / or removing green house gas emission wherever possible • Uses agriculture as a major tool for mitigation of GHG – CO 2 by laying emphasis on its unique capacity to absorb CO 2 and release Oxygen through photosynthesis process. 7

Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) • It prepares farmers to develop agriculture smart enough to survive onslaught impact on climate change. As on regular basis as a permanent feature and not as adhok or temporary solution. • The challenge before Agriculture Administration: ‐ the Agri. Scientists, Extension teams and agricultural organizations both Public and Private, and of course Public leadership is to make this happen. • It is an approach for addressing the development efforts towards the technical policy and investment condition by mainstreaming agriculture in overall development strategy 8

Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) Climate smart agriculture involves : • Crop pattern based on soil health & moisture analysis of an individual piece of land to support crops which can be sustained by its soil. • Weather advisory – local not national or state level , long term‐ medium term – short term inputs to take precautionary action directly to farmer. • Immediate Agro – advisory after unexpected weather changes have occurred for timely corrective action to prevent crop loss. • Nutritional and preventive vaccination to cattle and poultry. • All these by direct communication to farmer at his doorstep. • And use all available scientific technology to make agriculture more productive, less costly and linked with value added market mechanism. 9

Impact of climate change – three types A concurrent impact which is taking place over the decades. This has already affected productivity and reduction in water resources, while cost of energy is growing higher Unexpected change in weather pattern during monsoon season like delayed rain, long intervals for rain or heavy rain – flood has already affecting Horticulture crops. Major calamity like floods, cyclone/tornado , cloud burst etc At local level action plan is needed to provide by taking stock of what has happened to soil and its productivity and same about livestock due to changes in weather – increase in temperature etc A contingency plan to modify cropping pattern. This has to be part of local level (Taluka Level) action plan and Comprehensive District Agriculture Plan (CDAP). This is already prepared by Agri. Universities but need to be made available to farmers. Need restoration strategy because such disasters some time wipe out entire soil strata and sweet water sources including livestock and shelter 10

Climate Smart Agriculture In the arena of climate change focus of Agriculture Administration should be on: • Water Cycle • Soil and Moisture Management • Live stock Management • Energy saving in farming • Value chain for Agro produce – enhancing value • Multiple source of Income to farmers • Bridging gaps in productivity. With the active involvement of young farmers, women farmers and Sarpanches of villages. 11

Weather Forecasting • Can be effectively used in crop planning and its management. • A comprehensive weather based farm advisory is an interpretation of how the weather parameters, in future and present will affect crops, livestock and farm operations and, suggests actions to be taken. • The Advisory Services will be more effective if they are given in simple and local language that farmers can understand it. • In order to make the Agro‐Met Advisory Services more successful and continuous process, it is to be supported with: – agro meteorological database, – crop conditions, – real time weather, research results on crop‐weather relationships, and – skilled manpower in multi‐ disciplinary resources and users interface. Weather forecasts are of four types, viz. , now casting (4 to 5 hrs), short range forecast (valid for 48 hours), medium range (valid for 5 days to a week) and longrange or seasonal forecast (valid for month to season). 12

Indian Scenario – Present situation • No significant change in monsoon rainfall at All India level, some regional variations are noticed • Increase in rainfall in west coast, north AP and NW India, decreasing trend in east M. P. and adjoining areas • Increase in surface air temperature by 0. 510 C during 1901‐ 2007, accelerated warming during 1971‐ 2009 • Mean temperature rise by 0. 20 C per decade during 1971‐ 2009, greater rise in minimum temperature than maximum • One day extreme rainfall events are increasing • Cyclonic storms in Bay of Bengal showed declining trend of 2 cyclones/decade during 1891‐ 2008 • Deglaciation in the Himalayas • Sea level rise in Indian Ocean 1. 63 mm/year during 1993‐ 2009 13

Indian Scenario – Future projections • • • Change in rainfall pattern by the end of the 21 st century Increase in temperature by 2 to 4 0 C Warming will be more pronounced over most of the land areas Maximum increase over northern India Relatively greater warming in winter and post monsoon seasons Frequency of cyclones during post monsoon seasons (2071 to 2100) is projected to much higher than baseline scenario (1961‐ 1990) 14

Role of weather forecasting in Agriculture It helps to know the farming systems & their potential. It is important to • Be culturally sensitive & Win trust of farmers • Develop alternatives / options / choices • Demonstrate how climate / weather info helps make good decisions • Use seasonal calendar to identify farm activities • Use matrix to identify critical decisions and relevant climate parameters • Hands‐on learning – role plays to illustrate long‐term rainfall • Advisories based on weather/climate & cropping information. • Climate predictions and meteorological forecasts with added value for agriculture. • Monitoring and early warning services connected to climate. • Products of agro climatologically characterization; • Development & validation of adaptation strategies 15

State-wise district level AAS Bulletin State Name Total Andaman and Nicobar 3 Andhra Pradesh 22 Arunachal Pradesh 14 Assam 26 Bihar 38 Chhattisgarh 25 Delhi 1 Gujarat 26 Haryana 21 Himachal Pradesh 12 Jammu and Kashmir Jharkhand Karnataka Kerala 21 24 30 14 State Name Madhya Pradesh Maharashtra Manipur Meghalaya Mizoram Nagaland Orissa Punjab Rajasthan Tamil Nadu & Puducherry Tripura Uttar Pradesh Uttarakhand West Bengal Total 50 32 9 7 8 11 21 21 33 34 8 67 11 18 16

Recent climate - Aberrant and extreme Events Year All India SWM Rainfall Departure (%) 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 -8 -15 -19 +2 -13 -1 -1 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2014 +5 -2 -23 +2 +1 -8 -12 Remark Drought, Extreme cold winters in 2002 -03 20 day heat wave during May’ 03 in AP Abnormal temp. during Mar’ 04, Drought like situation in July’ 04 Abnormal temp. during Jan’ 05, Floods Cold wave 2005 -06; Floods in arid Rajasthan & AP and drought in NE regions in 2006 Abnormal temperatures during 3 rd week of Jan’ 07 to 1 st week of Feb ‘ 07 All India severe drought One of warmest years Failure of September rains in AP Early season drought 43% deficiency in June 10 of 14 years experienced deficient rainfall (72%) 17

Dissemination of Agro met Advisory • SMS / IVRS to relatively much larger number of farmers. • Modernize Agrimet website to make interactive • Multi‐platform backend: Web based and frontend. • Multi Linkages among Agri Experts, Knowledge Institutions, Services Providers, etc. • ICT based agricultural information dissemination models. • Media Lab Asia : An Interactive Information Dissemination System (IIDS) • Agrimet Domain linked to websites of other Ministries viz: Rural, Panchayati Raj etc. 18

Operational communication to end users (farmers) 19

Case study - farmers Sr. No. Personal Details 1 Name of Farmer: Mr. Keshavan State ‐ Tamil Nadu; Village ‐ Ilayanarkuppam; Taluka ‐Thirukazhukundram District ‐ Kaanchepuram 2 3 • • • Name of Farmer: Mr. Kailas Rambhau Adhav State: Maharashtra; Taluka: Ambegaon; District: Pune • Name of Farmer: Mr. Santosh State: Rajasthan; District: Bharatpur • • Details on achievement Delayed sowing one week due to possibility of rain. then spoke with experts to confirm the IMD forecast. Farmer shared this information with his fellow farmers As per forecast, heavy rain did occur causing heavy loss of seeds and newly germinated plants. But due to timely information, saved seeds worth Rs. 75, 000. His friends too saved seeds and sowing cost. Overall, he and his friends saved Rs. 3‐ 4 lacs and other expenses like labour cost, fertilizer costs, etc. received message during harvesting stage of Rabi onion since last 1 year and benefited as there was a possibility of rainfall during that period. he transferred his harvested onion in safe place and was able to save crop produce. His loss due to unseasonal rainfall was effectively minimized/zeroed due to such messages. Received information for aphid control in mustard & saved input cost which is most profitable for him. After receiving messages on possible attack of aphid in next 5 ‐ 6 days, he sprayed the given pesticide and saved his crop along with minimizing input costs.

Case study - farmers Sr. No. Personal Details 4 Name of Farmer: Mr. Bisupati Barman State: West Bengal; District: Coachbihar 5 6 Name of Farmer: Shri Narayan Bhai Chawda (Krishi Pandit), State: Madhya Pradesh; Village: Gomchi; District: Raipur Name of Farmer: Shri Jayant Bhai Taunk, State: Madhya Pradesh; Village: Doma, District: Raipur • • Details on achievement he claimed that weather content which he got is totally matched with the weather of his area. It helped him to take decision when to spray pesticide on the crop. Such type of content would help him to take proper decision for management of his crops. Since 1992, I have been getting these weather based agro advisories regularly on the evening of every Tuesday and Friday. These agro‐advisories are certainly playing very important role in planning our agriculture activities. Vegetables and the cereals are the major crops grown in my agriculture farm. dependent on AAS bulletins for scheduling different agricultural operations like fertilizer application, spraying of weedicides and pesticides, drip irrigation etc. I am very much interested in satellite pictures. It would be better if these pictures appear in local Newspapers every day.

Survey outcome Mahindra Agri business implemented a partnership project on Agro‐met advisory in five district of Maharashtra. Basically their analysis is on use of advisory by farmers. Their conclusions are: • SMS service module is working effectively in delivering SMS to customer base. 90% of the customers receive weather advisory through SMS. • Farmers are receiving SMS advisory. Most of the farmers are receiving advisory SMS twice a week. • 47% farmers requires customized communication 53% find the messages to be relevant to the crops grown. • In answer to “weather communication is useful? ” ‐ more than 85% farmers find the message to be useful for them and only 3% feel that the message is totally out of context for them while rest felt that climatic condition are not specified. It is a very generic message and message is incomplete.

NCCSD’s approach • The top‐down approach starts from global climate information and moves down to national & state levels for local projections and its impact analysis. • The bottom‐up approach, on the other hand, considers the present as the point of reference and focuses on social and economic areas of vulnerability or potential impact as a basis for considering future vulnerability at local level. • The NCCSD approach is mix above both. First based on available data experts identify local impact and solutions. This is followed by farmer’s interaction with experts. In this, first experts present overall picture and advise what is to be done. • This is followed by listening to farmers to understand: – What do they know about the climate change? – What measures they are taking based on their own knowledge? – What they have understood from extension network and followed? – What are their needs – problems? 23

NCCSD’s case study at State level Objective: • To bring awareness among the farmers regarding the issues of Climate Smart Agriculture • To develop understanding regarding how this issue arises and what are the effect of climate change in agriculture and livestock • To impart knowledge of improve recommended agriculture practices verities and contingent plan which are more suitable and appropriate in climate change situation. Methodology: • to collect data from two broad categories of farmers i. e. trained and not trained. • compared for their level of image, knowledge and modern farm technology adopted. • comprehensive picture of the image & impact of capacity building training programme for the farmers. • three selected districts (Anand, Navsari & Kutch). 12 taluka and 20 villages were selected. From 20 villages 200 trained and 200 untrained farmers were selected. • data collection by using an interview schedule . Use of valid scales designed by earlier research. The data collected from the farmer respondents were tabulated. • data analysis and described in terms of percentages. The statistical method employed for analysing the data were average percentage ‘+’ test, X 2 test. 24

Summary of findings TABLE-A Effect of respective levels of education among the farmers: A=Higher Secondary and above level, B=Secondary level and C= Primary level of education Aspects of Climate Smart Agriculture Knowledge (%) of Anand district Knowledge (%) of Navsari of Kutch district A B C 1. about the weather parameters 47 41 38 59 48 43 2. about the sci. application of weather parameters 52 42 38 51 42 38 54 45 44 3. about the use of modern scientific technology 53 44 31 53 47 43 4. about the impacts of climate change on agriculture 58 49 39 54 52 36 5. about the contact of extension linkages 49 43 39 42 37 33 6. Impacts of social participation among the farmers 42 37 35 39 35 31 50 43 37 50 41 35 50 44 38 Average knowledge of CSA (%) Average of Education level about CSA (% ) A= 50% (Higher Education & above level) B= 43% (Secondary level of Education) C= 37% (Primary level of Education)

Summary of findings Effect of respective levels of education among the farmers: From the survey data (Table‐A) it is clearly evident that knowledge levels were increased substantially among the various group of farmers in Anand, Navsari and Kutch district as their levels of education is increased from primary to higher secondary & above levels of education. However, the maximum gap of knowledge(63%) was observed in case of low levels of educated farmers having primary education as compare to higher levels of educated farmers (57%&50% was registered under farmers educated up to Higher secondary & above level, Secondary level respectively) in Anand, Navsari and Kutch district.

Summary of findings TABLE‐B Effect of irrespective level of education among the farmers Overall Percentage of Knowledge levels about the weather parameters (%) Knowledge levels about the utility of weather parameters in agriculture (%) Knowledge levels about the modern scientific technology (%) Impacts of climate change effect on agriculture (%) Effect of extension linkages among the farmers (%) Effect of social participations among the farmers (%) 1. Anand district 42 44 42 48 44 38 = (43) 2. Navsari district 47 48 53 43 42 31 = (45) 3. Kutch district 51 48 53 43 42 31 = (45)

Summary of findings • It is clearly observed from the survey data (Table‐B) that the overall knowledge percentage with respect to irrespective levels of education among the farmers of Anand, Navsari and Kutch district , most of the farmers had an average very low levels 44%of knowledge about the climate smart agriculture were registered • The maximum gap of knowledge about the climate smart agriculture among the farmers was observed 57%, 55% and 55% in Anand, Navsari and Kutch district respectively. • Knowledge levels about the weather parameters among the farmers was observed 42%, 47% and 51% in Anand, Navsari and Kutch district respectively.

Strategy & conclusion Farmers need • Crop specific advisory: Farmers further demand crop specific SMS. Management of crop specific data is a challenge due to change in cropping patterns. • Mobile compatibility: Decoding SMS in a regional language is an issue with few farmers • Feedback mechanism: There is no close loop in the information advisory. Contact mechanism has to be designed • On demand advisory: Farmers look for a on‐demand advisory through ICT route. Follow up for an SMS received by them In addition to these it is important to consider • Estimation of Soil moisture based on Satellite data: • Remote Sensing and GIS in AAS • Engage farmers in developing advisories 29

Strategy & conclusion Training should be organized on: Climatologically Analyses particularly of rainfall and temperature Weather forecasting and services specific to agriculture Micro‐meteorology Crop water use and irrigation management Crop simulation modelling Role of Meteorology in Crop protection, including pests and diseases modelling • Weather, Climate and Livestock, poultry and fish production • Climate Change and Agriculture • Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing in Agro meteorology. • • • 30

Strategy & conclusion User requirement types of economic decision can be categorized according to three time scales: • Long-term planning for agricultural development (rational allocation of land, choice of crops, selection of species and varieties). • Medium-term planning for the next season (choice of farming area, crop varieties, etc. ); • Short-term decisions regarding imminent farming operations (choice of optimal sowing and harvest dates, dates and quantities for fertilization, dates and quantities for irrigation, etc. ). Service requirement • To establish the worthiness of the service: Economic impact has to be carried out in order to know its potential benefits. • Service credibility: Credibility is always closely linked to forecast verification. Hence economic impact studies need to be carried out to derive optimum benefits from the marketing of the service. • Service accountability or justification: Assessment of the service helps justifying the costs and the on-going need and existence of such a service. 31

Dr. Kirit Shelat National Council for Climate Change, Sustainable Development and Public Leadership (NCCSD) Post Box No. 4146, Navrangpura Post Office, Ahmedabad – 380 009. Gujarat, INDIA. Phone: 079 -26421580 (Off) 09904404393(M) Email: info@nccsdindia. org Website: www. nccsdindia. org 32