Role of Climate Related Services Building Climate Smart Farmers

Indian Centre for Climate and Societal Impacts Research

(ICCSIR) Mandvi, Kachchh, Gujarat, India

Presented by: Shouvik Jha

Climate change & farmers

• Smallholder farmers - vulnerable to climate fluctuations and weather extremes

• Climate related services offer great potential to enable farmers to make informed decisions and better manage risk

Climate services – Indian scenario

• Agricultural Meteorology Division, India Meteorological Department(IMD)

• Working with objective of minimizing the impact of adverse weather on crops and to boost agricultural production.

• Publishing district Agro Advisories Bulletin (AAS) twice a week

Civil Society Organizations – A local perspective, Kachchh, arid region in India

• Indian Centre for Climate and Societal Impacts Research (ICCSIR)

• C C Shroff Research Institute (CCSRI)

• Vivekanand Research & Training Institute (VRTI)

• National Council for Climate Change & Sustainable Development (NCCSD)

ICCSIR – providing weather forecast

• Weather forecast for long term, seasonal, medium term and short term

• Forecast includes future trends about temperature, rainfall, humidity, etc.

• Weekly Weather Forecast on Each Tuesday

• Alerts for eventualities of heavy downpour / other weather catastrophe.

Crop advisories to farmers

• VRTI is providing advisories to farmers through SMS & electronic media, bulletin

• Crop advisories are also disseminated for long term, seasonal and short term

• Advisories to farmers with respect to agricultural operations in relation to delay in rainfall, extreme temperature and other weather parameters

Capacity building of farmers

• ‘Climate Resilient Practices’ which to be adopted by farmers: • Soil management

• Soil moisture conservation

• Crop selection strategies

• Contingency planning

• Management of livestock

• Bio technology

• Management of saline soil & water

Capacity building of farmers

• 4 CSOs jointly working for development of ‘Climate Resilient Practices’ which to be adopted by farmers through • Printed guide book

• Direct training programme

• Training of trainers (TOTs)

• Non formal education center for farmers

• Training programmes are conducted in all districts of Gujarat

Farmers – responding to climate services

• Region: Chhotaudepur and Jetpur Pavi, Gujarat, India • No. of Villages: 67 / No. of Farmers: 1950 • Season: Wet Season called Kharif (July - November),

2016-17 • Paddy major food crop of tribal communities.

• Based on forecasts of delayed rains, the farmers were advised to delay nurseries seeding by a week i.e. last week of May.

• As a fall off of this, transplantation was done after 10/07/2016.

• Had the nurseries been raised during second week of May, the transplanting could have not been done leading to a loss of about Rs. 1350/acre.

• Collective loss of around INR 5 million or $0.75 million for 1950 farmers was saved

Farmers – responding to climate services

• Region: Kachchh, Rukmavati River Basin • 110 new rain water harvesting structures, 112

renovation (desilting) of existing structures 4000 Ha of lands got irrigation security

• Efficient use of water through promotion of drip irrigation – 4500 Ha of land, 50% saving in irrigation water

• 41,000 trees planted in basin area to improve greenery

• Promoting horticultural plantation – 1,000 Ha land having permanent green cover

Programme Imapct: CO2 Sequestration in Rukmavati River Basin

Thank You

For further information, please contact

admin@iccsir.org outreach@iccsir.org

Web: http://www.iccsir.org

Phone No: +91 2834 224024