Micro-Level Drought Preparedness with ICT Tools and Information Services… 7

MICRO-LEVEL DROUGHT PREPAREDNESS WITH ICT TOOLS AND INFORMATION SERVICES:

EXPERIENCES FROM ICRISAT

G. Sreedhar1, G. Dileep Kumar1, P. Vijaya Raju1, N.T. Yaduraju1 and R. Nagarajan2 1International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Patancheru–502 324

2CSRE, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay

ABSTRACT

Drought is one of the most insidious and creeping natural hazards that we face today, yet its origin and alleviation are still not easily controlled. The agricultural sector is the first to face the crisis of drought, primarily because of its heavy dependency on rainfall and surface water. The severity of drought’s impact on rainfed agriculture cannot be altogether curtailed, but it can be reduced by implementing drought preparedness plans. In this paper, the authors discuss the use of ICTs in developing and implementing drought preparedness plans. A study was conducted in Adakkal Mandal, Mahabubnagar district of Andhra Pradesh to educate farmers about drought awareness using GIS derived micro-level drought maps and ICT tools to mitigate losses, due to more informed decisions. ICRISAT and its partners experimented with various ICT tools like video-conferencing, audio-conferencing, and mobile telephony for delivering agro-advisories related to weather and best agriculture practices. Advance availability of drought vulnerability maps and timely weather information accompanied with agro-advisories played a pivotal role in helping farmers to make informed decisions to cope with drought.

Keywords: Drought, GIS, ICT for Agro-Advisory, VASAT and Triple Helix Model.

1. INTRODUCTION

Global agriculture is confronted by several disasters like climate change, droughts, floods, land degradation, loss of biodiversity, food crisis, energy crisis and population growth. If not controlled, their confluence would lead to a “perfect storm” triggering a global disaster posing challenges to feed the world. There is already evidence that climate change has induced warmer temperatures for longer periods, prolonged droughts and floods during the 20th century. The impact of climate change on rainfall pattern is likely to be more prominent as their effects are going to be borne by all, particularly the poor people who live in the drylands (IPCC, 2001; Mall et al., 2006; Dar, 2010; SASA, 2012). There is a growing concern about the future changes in the climate, particularly drought which has many direct or indirect effects on agriculture and its allied sectors (IPCC, 2001; Aggarwal et al., 2003; Mall et al., 2006). Millions of farmers in the Semi Arid Tropics (SAT) continue to gamble with the monsoon and a variety of constraints directly or indirectly linked with climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report issued in 2007 indicates that the poor in the SAT regions will be more vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change (Mula et al., 2010).

Drought is a “creeping phenomenon” of climate change whose effects accumulate gradually and may persist over long periods of time, making it a difficult task to determine the beginning and end of droughts. Characteristics such as intensity, time of occurrence, duration and spatial coverage determine the severity of drought hazards. The severity of drought is also militated by the demands made by human activities and the vegetation as well as the region’s water supplies (Meyer et al., 1993). In drought affected rural areas, the major damage is incurred by the food and agricultural sector, which jeopardizes the lives of people dependent on it. Drought impact on the rural economy dependent on agriculture and allied sectors is very severe, as 57% of agricultural land in India is rainfed. Delayed or reduced or uneven distribution of rainfall in space and time in drylands exacerbates the water shortages, leaving the rural poor in semi-arid regions more vulnerable to disasters. The response to drought is often varied and the assistance provided is judged as too little and late. Though, India doesn’t have a strategy or a long-term action plan for drought preparedness and mitigation (NAAS, 2011), preparedness is considered better than relief in drought matters. Despite the availability of advance warnings of drought, most of the farm communities do not know what to do to cope with the situation. It is expected that timely issuing of drought warning and awareness about drought coping measures can help farm communities to sustain themselves during times of drought. Realizing the importance of information services, the Science and Technology Commission of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) recommended the adoption of a communication framework that combines top-down approaches and community mobilization to enhance preparedness (UNSO, 2000). So, a pilot study was undertaken in drought prone Mahabubnagar district to understand the efficacy of ICT, GIS derived drought vulnerability maps and information services interventions in drought preparedness.

Proceedings of AIPA 2012, INDIA

8 Agro-Informatics and Precision Agriculture 2012 (AIPA 2012)

2. STUDY AREA

Adakkal block consisting of 37 villages includes 16 hamlets, located in Mahabubnagar district of Andhra Pradesh was selected as the study area for pilot testing the ICT interventions for drought preparedness. Geographical area of the study area is 196 km2 with 60 per cent of the region being under rainfed agriculture, located between 16° 28′ 28.3″ and 16° 41′ 1.98″ N latitude and 77° 2′ 47.34″ and 78° 2′ 46″ E longitude. The region falls under the rain shadow region with an elevation ranging from 380 to 647 m above Mean Sea Level (MSL) and receives annual precipitation ranging from 391.0 to 542.6 mm, categorized under the Southern Telangana agro-climatic zone. The region has a population of 46,380 which includes 50.7 % males and 49.43% females. Though agriculture is the main occupation of the region, only 15% of the region has irrigation facilities and most of the region is rainfed, dairy farming and allied activities are other prominent occupations. The most important crops grown in the region are castor, groundnut, maize, chickpea, sorghum, pearl millet and rice. This region is prone to recurrent droughts and mass migration has been noticed and reported in last two decades. The water resources in the region are dwindling depending on the local rainfall, groundwater availability is marked semi-critical, cultivation in the region is mainly dependent on rainfall or tank irrigation based on the amount of rainfall runoff stored. Irrigation tanks act as insulators when drought or flood events occur; they also contribute for groundwater recharge. Global Positioning System (GPS) aided surveys conducted in the region from 2009 to 2011 showed that the irrigation tanks had accumulated with 1.82 to 3.0 meters silt and also were infested with weeds. Efforts are being made under government implemented schemes to clean-up silt and weeds. Adarsha Mahila Samaikhya (AMS-Adarsha Women’s Welfare Organization) located in this region actively works with governmental and non-governmental organization in many developmental activities. AMS has a strong network of 8100 women members and works closely with the farmers. AMS, with the help of the Govt. of Andhra Pradesh, approached ICRISAT to help rural communities to cope with drought. To facilitate communication between the farm communities and ICRISAT, AMS identified individuals to act as Village Network Assistance (VNA). The VNAs act as information carriers at the bottom of the triangle to share information with farmers during village meetings.

3. METHODOLOGY

An integrated framework developed to help farm communities to cope with drought, GIS derived village drought vulnerability maps and agro-advisories given using ICTs were the tools used in this framework. ICRISAT with a vision to help rural poor to cope with drought has set-up Virtual Academy for Semi-arid Tropics (VASAT) to achieve food security. Keeping this as a priority, VASAT is also devising plans to set up a centre for excellence to achieve Food Security at its headquarters.

VASAT developed a three strand triple helix model that consists of knowledge systems for food security.

Strand 1: Useful Knowledge in all Areas Relating to Drought Mitigation and Management

(a) Development of Learning Resources on Drought/Climate Related Aspects

VASAT developed re-usable learning objects, digital entities developed to facilitate knowledge sharing and learning; on drought/climate related aspects (Figure 1.) and ICRISAT mandate crops and soil and water management. These learning resources have been developed through a peer review process by the institutional members of VASAT coalition. These modules are meant to support building natural resource literacy among rural women and men. Many of them have not had the level of classroom learning opportunities that some of us have been privileged to have. This is why our designers have followed the granule-of-learning approach. Every module is split into granules most of which will have a definite learning outcome. The learning resources are presented both in whole and as granules in PPT (R) or Flash(R) formats. The learning resources can be accessed at http://www.vasat.icrisat.org/?q=content/learning-modules-page. These learning resources were converted into local language (i.e. Telugu) with the help of AMS volunteers and were made available on PCs that were installed in village knowledge centres set-up by ICRISAT.

(b) Drought Vulnerability Scenario Development

The drought assessment framework developed by Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay was adopted to develop drought severity maps. To ascertain the vulnerability of a village to drought, the water budget method was adopted. The percentage of water deficit was estimated by taking into consideration water availability from rainfall/ runoff and water demand for cultivation, livestock and human consumption. This has been pilot tested in parts of Addakal mandal and the results were promising (Dileepkumar, 2007). Census information—like human, livestock and crops grown and acreage—was collected from the mandal revenue office, Adakkal Mandal, Mahabubnagar District. Census data was used to calculate village water requirements by taking into consideration the standard recommended values for

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human consumption, livestock consumption and water required for growing crops. The water availability for each village during a particular rainfall (i.e., @500 mm annual rainfall the amount of surface water stored after evaporation and seepage losses) was estimated using the standard water balance techniques. The water required and available for each village was used to estimate the water deficit/surplus status of each village. This information has further been used to prepare thematic drought vulnerability maps.

Fig. 1: RLO’s Prepared on Drought Related Aspects

Fig. 2: Drought Vulnerability Map and Long Range Prediction (@500 mm annual rainfall)

Adakkal mandal village map was digitised by scanning and geo-referencing the hard copy maps obtained from Central Survey Office, Hyderabad with reference to topographic maps, available from Survey of India, Hyderabad. This map consists of village boundaries of 21 villages available in the mandal, the water deficit/surplus information estimated earlier was entered into the respective village database in GIS. This information was used to develop thematic maps showing the drought vulnerability variation, where red colored villages indicated high vulnerability to drought, orange and yellow indicated lower vulnerability to drought compared red colored villages while light green and green indicated low and very low vulnerability to drought. The most important parameter in drought vulnerability scenario development is the rainfall prediction for the growing season. For rainfall prediction, the India Meteorological Department of India issued long range forecast for 2011 was considered and used. The long range forecast for 2011 south-west monsoon for the country was likely to be near normal and 99% of the long period average with a model error of +5%. Adakkal Mandal which is located in Mahabubnagar district receives a normal rainfall of 550 mm, the region experiences very fluctuating rainfall as it is located in rain shadow region. Because of this, a rainfall scenario of 500 mm (Figure 2) was selected for the year 2011 to prepare the drought vulnerability maps. The maps were made available to rural communities during field surveys and farming communities were sensitized about drought preparedness using the ICT tools discussed in the strands below.

Strand 2: ICT4D Models

ICRISAT’s VASAT group has been experimenting with several information and communication technology tools (Figure 3.) for information dissemination to farm communities for rural development. ICRISAT has set-up eight village knowledge centres and a hub in Adakkal mandal under the aegis of AMS members. The AMS women were trained on basic computer skills and also on video conferencing, audio conferencing systems and mobile based agro-advisory receiving. PCs were used to access drought and other learning resources as well as local school students were sensitized about basic computer literacy. Mobile telephony, video and audio conference systems formed a means to communicate agro-advisory to the farmers and also to solve real time field problems. The AMS hosts the hub infrastructure comprising a bank of PCs, and low-cost satellite connectivity to the Internet. In Dec. 2005, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) donated the AMS a complete kit to connect to a satellite-based video conferencing

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facility. ICRISAT-KVK Mahabubnagar and AMS have joined hands to implement agro-advisory service to the farmers of the Adakkal region using vKVK platform.

Fig. 3: Levels of Information Linkages

Voice-Krishi Vigyan Kendra (vKVK): The mobile revolution is considered to be the most innovative approach for the last mile connectivity. An innovative voice-KVK platform developed by Indian Institute of Technomlgy was used for delivering agricultural information to farmers using SMS and voice messaging systems. The KVK (Krishi Vigyan Kendras) scientists were trained to use the v-KVK platform and to develop and issue advisories on the mobile phones of farmers either in the form of simple Short Message Services (SMS) or voice messages. Advent of voice KVK system, the constraints such as illiteracy and the mobiles not supporting the local fonts were overcome. The vKVK platform allows the extension officer to record messages directly on their mobile phones and send them to the farmers’ mobile phone directly or through web. As of January, 2012, nearly 10,000 voice and 2000 text messages were sent out free of cost to nearly 175 farmers in Adakkal region. The advisories are provided on sowing, different stages of plant growth, remedial measures taken to tackle disease and pest attack, harvesting technology and weather.

Strand 3: The Open Distance Learning Paradigm: Personalized Learning for the Masses

ICRISAT has been using video and audio conference facilities to educate AMS women and Village Network Assistants (VNAs) about best agricultural practices related to dry land crops cultivation and mobile telephony for agro-advisory delivery. VNAs further share this information to other villagers during the village meetings.

3.1 Validation

To validate the developed drought vulnerability maps, ICRISAT established five rain gauge stations in Adakkal surrounding villages and AMS women were trained to measure the rainfall and curate records for further assessment. Impact assessment studies were also conducted to assess the utility of mobile based advisories regarding dry-land crops cultivation practices.

Fig. 4: Rural Women Measuring Rainfall

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4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The study on drought preparedness using information services has been going on since 2008, primarily to understand the ICT’s role in information sharing and drought preparedness. In 2011, 21 villages were covered in this study. ICRISAT scholars, with the help of village volunteers, contacted rural residents to exchange information on upcoming droughts and dryland crop cultivation before the start of the season. Another field survey was conducted at the end of the season to assess the utility of the maps and agro-advisory. Figure 5 shows the comparison of measured and predicted rainfall of the study area. 80% of the villages in the Adakkal region received below normal and forecasted rainfall. Around 50% of the villages which were marked in red and orange colors were observed to have very critical rainfall levels and suffered severe drought. Farmers in these villages reported paddy crop failure and groundwater depletion has further disheartened the farmers’ hope to sustain themselves during the crisis. However, many farmers still continued growing paddy and suffered huge losses. Some farmers heeding to the advisory switched from paddy cultivation to dryland crops. They also mentioned that the agro-advisory on pest management and best practices provided through mobile telephony, video and audio conferencing during the growing season was helpful in their decision making. It was evident from the study that information services can play a crucial role in facilitating rural learning, and also in sensitizing communities about upcoming disasters, particularly to support drought preparedness. This study emphasizes the necessity of fostering the capacity of local agencies and institutes on drought preparedness using various information services in order to enhance the livelihoods of dryland farmers. Overall, it was observed that village knowledge centres and ICT tools particularly the mobile based advisory has come hand to the farmers in making crucial decisions and also contributed to improved understanding of micro-level drought preparedness among the rural communities.

Predicted and actual rainfall distribution

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Fig. 5: Predicted and Actual Rainfall Distribution

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The financial support of ICAR to ICRISAT is gratefully acknowledged. The authors would also like to thank IIT Kanpur Team led by Prof. T V Prabhakar for facilitating the use of vKVK platform, Dr Kiran Yadav and Ria Misra, colleagues from ICRISAT, for their help in developing this manuscript and Dr Rajendra Reddy, program Coordinator, KVK. Mahbubnagar for providing agro-advisories to farmers.

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