Climate Exchange

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griculture

ments and use of bio-fertilizers resulted in 21-66 per cent increases in

crop yields covering three million hectares in 30 districts.

An innovative extension system was used as well as an insti-

tutional arrangement to empower the farmers through the Rytha

Samparka Kendra (the state’s extension service centre), farm facili-

tators and innovative supply chains. The missionary approach has

shown its benefit for 3.3 million farmer families since 2009 through

increases in productivity of 21-66 per cent over the farmers’ prac-

tices. For the Government of Karnataka, this translated to an annual

agricultural growth rate of 5.9 per cent during 2009-10, and 11.6 per

cent growth during 2010-11. During 2011, three million hectares

were covered in the rainy season and the economic returns were to

the tune of US$ 130 million.

ICRISAT-led consortiums under the Andhra Pradesh Rural

Livelihood Project of the Government of Andhra Pradesh and the

Department for International Development have developed knowl-

edge-sharing systems by developing a hub-and-spoke model at

Addakal, one of the most drought-prone regions in Andhra Pradesh.

The information and communication technology (ICT) based rural

knowledge centre is operated by the women’s self-help groups and

is maintained not only as a knowledge-sharing system within the

community, but also as a provider of financial services through coop-

erative banking and running a highway restaurant as to generate

income. This ICT-based knowledge hub is under the Virtual Academy

for the Semi-Arid Tropics and has been used further for providing

ICT-enabled systems to enable early warnings for disaster manage-

ment with a combination of top-down and bottom-up approaches and

community mobilization.

This pilot experiment revealed that the functional literacy of women

was sufficient to handle ICT information hubs at watershed/village level

and it enabled improved management of natural resources

as well as improving their livelihoods by acting as a service

provider to the community. The community actively

participated in this initiative and has shown its potential

for developing drought vulnerability assessments using

ICT as a development tool with the help of intermediar-

ies. The village knowledge centre is owned and operated

by the community. Currently, the India Meteorological

Department provides integrated advisory services for use

by the farming community at district level. This network

shares the information through email advisories, TV,

mobile telephones and the radio network, and farmers

are assisted with weather-based agro advisory through

Krishi Vignan Kendras, enabling them to take advantage

of prognosticated weather conditions and thereby form a

response strategy.

There is an urgent need to develop a climate change

network for Indian agriculture as well as for other coun-

tries in Asia and Africa by adopting a hybrid model of

using ICT where it is feasible along with traditional

communication channels like community radios, TV,

mobile telephones and trained human resources at

community and village level. This will go a long way in

building the resilience of the community to cope with

the impacts of climate change, particularly in rainfed

areas of developing Asia and Africa. Such a knowl-

edge network would enable the farmers to harness the

untapped potential of rainfed agriculture for improving

their livelihoods and achieving food security through

sustainable intensification of rainfed agriculture.

Low-cost rainwater harvesting structures

Image: ICRISAT