Enhancing Adaptive Capacity To Manage Climate Risk In Agriculture Through Community-Led Climate Information Centres

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.