Custom Hiring Centers: Facilitating Inclusive Access to Weather-Resilient Technology

Thirteen Custom Hiring Centers (CHC) established in three project districts are enabling farmers to access farming equipment’s on rent, facilitating efficient use of inputs, and supporting an increase in income. With more than 80% of the farmers in India being small and marginal, purchasing agricultural machinery such as tillers, threshers, harvesters are not an economically viable option. For this reason, most of the small and marginal farmers in India engage in time and cost-intensive traditional methods of farming, making it a difficult task to increase their income and have an economically stable life. To address this issue, as part of the project on scaling Climate-Smart Villages (CSVs) in India, thirteen Custom Hiring Centers (CHC) have been established in the project districts, with the vision of making climate-smart agriculture technology inclusively available. These CHCs facilitate easy access to agricultural machinery such as weeders, sprayers, threshers, small harvesters, tillers, happy speeders, portable solar pumps for irrigation among others to farmers on rent, at affordable rates

Promotion of Weather Resilient Technologies, Practices, and Services: Wheat Crop

Wheat is the second most important food crop of India contributing almost 40% to total cereal production in the country. It has been the major rabi crop for the three project districts across the years. Climate change is expected to reduce wheat yield in India in the range of 6 to 23% by 2050 and 15 to 25% by 2080. The impacts of weather extremes were witnessed last year, when a hailstorm (during the harvesting period) in Betul district of Madhya Pradesh, ruined the crop yields of rabi season 2018. Similarly, in Nalanda district of Bihar, an increase in average temperatures during the grain-filling period resulted in lower weight of the seeds and therefore lower yields. Cold waves in Betul and excess rainfall in Mathura during the harvesting stage of wheat have been the major factors impacting the crop yield in these two districts. Employment of improved and resilient practices, services, and technologies for wheat crop cultivation in Betul district of Madhya Pradesh, Nalanda district of Bihar, and Mathura district of Uttar Pradesh, led to an average increase of around 50% of crop yield

Promotion of Weather Resilient Technologies, Practices, and Services for Vegetables

India is the second-largest producer of vegetables in the world, though farmers face many challenges in vegetable cultivation. Selecting the right variety of seeds for vegetable crops like tomato, cucumbers, okra among others, and protecting the crops from the diseases, weeds, and insect pests are some of the major issues which the farmers of the project area faced. Based on the need assessment a portfolio of interventions was introduced to assist vegetable farmers in increasing their production and income. The case study shows that 464 farmers in Madhya Pradesh adopted improved / resilient practices, services, and technologies for vegetable cultivation

Promotion of Weather Resilient Technologies, Practices, and Services: Bajra Crop

Improved/resilient agricultural practices, services and technologies for Bajra crop cultivation, were promoted in Mathura district of Uttar Pradesh, India Bajra (Pearl Millet) is a Kharif (monsoon season) crop, cultivated in 8.7 million ha land in dry and warm climatic conditions across India. It is cultivated as a major Kharif crop in Mathura district of Uttar Pradesh, India. The crop selection is due to poor irrigation facilities and scanty rainfall in this area, although the local varieties sown in this area grow very tall and matures late. Excess rainfall often caused lodging of the standing crops especially the once sown via the broadcasting method. Besides, the yield of these varieties is also very low

Promoting Improved Livestock Development Practices for a Resilient Future

The livestock production system contributes around 4% to India’s GDP and also serves as a source of income, food, and energy for the rural economy. Cattle, goat, and buffalo constitute the major share of livestock and are majorly present in states including Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan Andhra Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh. However, Cattle yields remain low and climate risks further impact livestock health as well as productivity. Weather events such as an increase in temperature, heatwaves, excess rainfall, drought exacerbate these problems and further increase the disease and mortality of cattle. As part of the project livestock development practices, services and technologies were promoted in the project districts (Betul- Madhya Pradesh, Nalanda- Bihar and Mathura, Uttar Pradesh) to reduce the vulnerability of livestock keepers against climatic variability. Present case study highlights the methodology and outputs achieved from these interventions

Promotion of Weather Resilient Technologies, Practices, and Services: Rice (Paddy) Crop

Rice is India's dominant crop, contributing 25% to the total cropped area and 45% to the total production of principal crops in the country. It is primarily rain-fed in most parts of the country and majorly cultivated by marginal and small farmers. While crop yields have been increasing, the potential to close the existing yield gap is increasingly challenged by climatic risks, threatening the food security of the population. The present case study shows that improved and resilient practices such as plantation of climate-resilient variety of paddy, Direct Seeding of Rice (DSR), line transplanting nearly doubled the rice production for the farmers associated with the project

Promotion of Weather Resilient Technologies, Practices, and Services: Gram Crop

Improved drought-resilient crop variety of gram crop was introduced and promoted in the project district of Betul, in Madhya Pradesh. This led to increased crop production and assured income of farmers, even during drought situations. Gram (Chickpea) is the dominant pulse of India, occupying 33% of the total cropped area under pulses and contributing 44% to total pulse production in the country. In the warm and dry regions of Madhya Pradesh, India, climate risks such as drought and heat stress are expected to negatively impact chickpea yields. Besides, sowing failure either due to excess rainfall or frost just after crop sowing, and crop failure due to hailstorm before harvesting have been the major concern of farmers

Convergence and Integration: Funds, Functions and Functionaries of Government Programs

The convergence of funds and efforts of stakeholders is playing a crucial role in anchoring climate-resilient agricultural practices in the project states of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar of India. Most of the Centre and State-sponsored schemes of the Government of India work in a silo, addressing only a certain aspect of the problem instead of the complete problem. As part of the project, a new initiative was established to create a convergence platform for farmers, government officials, and other stakeholders to discuss, plan and implement government schemes in a participatory manner with Gram-Sabha being the participatory planning unit

Crop Insurance as an Adaptive Safety Net

Awareness campaigns became the key to insure crops of more than 3,300 farmers in Betul, Mathura and Nalanda for the Indian Government’s crop insurance scheme. With the high susceptibility of agriculture to risks like droughts and floods, a mechanism to strengthen the social security of farmers becomes the need of the hour. Crop insurance mechanism aids to protect the farmers from the crop losses incurred due to natural calamities and ensures their credit eligibility for the future. While, the genesis of the schemes such as Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Siddhi (PM-KISAN) Yojana, The Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) is an expression of the government’s strong will to secure the lives of farmers, adoption of these schemes has always been a challenge of such schemes. Addressing this challenge, the project-initiated awareness campaigns to not only impart awareness and knowledge but also facilitate attitude and behavioral change in farmers, pertaining to crop insurance

ICT Based Weather Information and Agro Advisory Services

11,250 farmers from 75 villages in the three project districts are being assisted to access weather forecast information and agro advisory, to better adapt to the impending weather events. Weather information and agricultural advisory (extension) services have long been recognized as an important factor in promoting agricultural development. As part of the USAID project, a mobile phone-based information dissemination system has been established in three districts i.e. Mathura (Uttar Pradesh), Nalanda (Bihar) and Betul (Madhya Pradesh) in India. A total of 3,750 farmers from 25 villages in each district are being assisted with weather forecast information and agro advisory services