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Challenges and Opportunities for Supporting Smallholder Farmers

through Climate Services – At Scale

James Hansen, Arame Tall

World Bank, 23 January 2014

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What is CCAFS?

•  Strategic partnership of international agriculture (CGIAR) and global change (Future Earth) research communities

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•  Strategic partnership of international agriculture (CGIAR) and global change (Future Earth) research communities

•  World’s largest research program addressing the challenge of climate change and food security

What is CCAFS?

Ø  Mechanism for organizing, funding climate-related work across CGIAR

Ø  Involves all 15 CGIAR Centers

Ø  Outcome-focused

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•  Strategic partnership of international agriculture (CGIAR) and global change (Future Earth) research communities

•  World’s largest research program addressing the challenge of climate change and food security

•  5 target regions across the developing world •  Organized around 4 Themes:

•  Adaptation to progressive change

•  Adaptation through managing climate risk •  Pro-poor climate change mitigation

•  Integration for decision-making

What is CCAFS?

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•  Strategic partnership of international agriculture (CGIAR) and global change (Future Earth) research communities

•  World’s largest research program addressing the challenge of climate change and food security

•  5 target regions across the developing world •  Organized around 4 Themes:

•  Adaptation to progressive change

•  Adaptation through managing climate risk •  Pro-poor climate change mitigation

•  Integration for decision-making

What is CCAFS?

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The What and Why of Climate Services

Message 1: Climate services can make a contribution to climate-resilient

development investment.

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The cost of climate variability

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Climatic outcome (e.g. production, income)

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•  Climate risk contributes to chronic poverty, vulnerability, food insecurity •  Downside risk: shocks •  Opportunity cost: uncertainty •  Affects farmers, markets, the food system,

the “relief trap”

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The cost of climate variability •  Climate risk contributes to chronic

poverty, vulnerability, food insecurity •  Downside risk: shocks •  Opportunity cost: uncertainty •  Affects farmers, markets, the food system,

the “relief trap”

•  Climate variability is increasing •  Several opportunities to help agriculture

adapt are… •  Dependent on information •  Constrained by information gaps

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Examples

•  Adjusting farm management

•  Community-level DRR (flood, storms)

•  Characterize risks for agricultural technology

•  Index-based insurance to protect assets, increase access to credit and inputs

•  Government agricultural planning and budgeting

•  Improve safety nets and food security interventions

•  Understand climate change vs. natural variability vs. non-climatic changes to inform long-term planning

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From to Weather to Climate: Seamless Early Warning > Early Action

HOURS DAYS WEEKS MONTHS YEARS DECADES …

WEATHER CLIMATE

•  Tillage  

•  Sowing  

•  Irriga.on  

•  Crop  protec.on  

•  Harvest  

•  Changing  farming  or  livelihood  system  

•  Major  capital  investment  

•  Migra.on  

•  Family  succession  

•  Land  alloca.on  

•  Crop  selec.on  

•  Household  labor  alloca.on,  seasonal  migra.on  

•  Technology  selec.on  

•  Financing  for  inputs  

•  Contract  farming  

•  Depends on time horizon of decision

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From to Weather to Climate: Seamless Early Warning > Early Action

HOURS DAYS WEEKS MONTHS YEARS DECADES …

WEATHER CLIMATE

•  Depends on time horizon of decision

•  Generalizations about increasing lead time:

•  Decisions more context- and farmer-specific

•  Information becomes more uncertain, more complex

•  Therefore the scope of services needed increases

•  Climate services more than an extension of weather services

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Investing in Climate Services

Message 2: The right investment, leveraging other efforts, can bring relevant climate

services to smallholder farmers – at scale

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What other “soft investments” will be needed? •  Salience: tailoring content, scale, format, lead-time to farm

decision-making

•  Legitimacy: giving farmers an effective voice in design and delivery

•  Access: providing timely access to remote rural communities with marginal infrastructure

•  Equity: ensuring that women, poor, socially marginalized benefit

•  Integration: climate services as part of a larger package of support

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What else is needed? Institutional arrangements

•  Limitations of supply-driven climate services

CLIMATE SERVICE

NMS  (climate)  

User  (farmer)  

INFORMATION  

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CLIMATE SERVICE

NMS  (climate)  

User  (farmer)  

VALUE-ADDED INFORMATION

NARES  (agriculture)  PARTNERSHIP

What else is needed? Institutional arrangements

•  Limitations of supply-driven climate services

•  Expand the boundary to agricultural research and development organizations

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What else is needed? Institutional arrangements

•  Limitations of supply-driven climate services

•  Expand the boundary to agricultural research and development organizations

•  Expand the boundaries to give farmers effective voice

CLIMATE SERVICE

NMS  (climate)  

Co-­‐owner  (farmer)  

NARES  (agriculture)  PARTNERSHIP

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CCAFS climate services experience

Message 3: CCAFS work to bring climate services to smallholder

agriculture is an available resource.

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Piloting at Climate Smart Villages

•  Learning laboratory

•  Improved information design

•  Workshop process

•  Evidence of what works

•  Demand for scaling up

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Learning from national agrometeorology programs

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Tackling gender and social equity

•  Women disadvantaged when scaling up climate services. Answering:

•  Why?

•  How to overcome?

•  Gender challenges incorporated into training for intermediaries

•  Climate services a proxy for “climate-smart” services for farmers

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Training for agricultural extension, intermediaries

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•  M&E protocol to measure added-value of climate services projects to farmer communities

•  Good practice guidance: •  Baseline collection

•  Ongoing assessment for learning •  End of project impact assessment

•  Locally-relevant tool •  Gender responsive

Evaluating impact

Objectives  of  Assessment: 1.  Inform design of new climate services."2.  Identify current gaps in effective climate

service delivery for farmers."3.  Quantify farmer benefit from investment

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Climate information that is useful to farmers

•  Historic + monitoring + prediction

•  Scale problems •  Challenges that developing

country NMS face: •  Sparse historic observations

•  Data policy, incentives •  Human capacity

•  Bringing climate science to farmer needs

?

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Climate information that is useful to farmers

•  ENACTS (Enhancing National Climate Services): •  Started in Ethiopia (IRI, U.

Reading, NMA, CCAFS)

•  Satellite + station, 10 km grid, 31 year complete record

•  Data Library platform to build “maproom” products from data

•  Owned, implemented by NMS

•  Generating information products useful for farmers

STATION  

BLENDED  

SATELLITE  

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Enables NMS to customize, generate and disseminate locally relevant climate information without over-taxing limited human resources.

Transforming how African NMS do business.

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How to reach millions of farmers?

•  Address climate information supply, communication, use bottlenecks in parallel

•  Improving information supply •  Low-hanging fruit for farmer-relevant climate information (e.g.,

ENACTS) •  Caution about investing in observing infrastructure alone

•  Two-fold path to communication capacity: •  Equip organizations that already reach farmers with other

services (e.g., agricultural extension, development NGOs, …) •  ICT and media – particularly for simpler, shorter-lead information

•  Institutional coordination mechanisms •  Leverage broader climate services community

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How to reach millions of farmers?

World Vision-Tanzania •  Serves ~1 M farmers +

pastoralists in Tanzania •  Addressing key bottlenecks:

•  Capacity of TMA to provide farmer-relevant information

•  World Vision human and ICT infrastructure

•  Climate communication training for WV and extension

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How to reach millions of farmers?

World Vision-Tanzania •  Serves ~1 M farmers +

pastoralists in Tanzania •  Addressing key bottlenecks:

•  Capacity of TMA to provide farmer-relevant information

•  WV human and ICT infrastructure

•  Climate communication training for WV and extension

GFCS in Tanzania, Malawi •  UN global process •  National Framework process

to engage across government

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What CCAFS can bring you?

•  “Go-to place” for good practices, tools, methods, lessons to inform investments and guide design •  Connecting climate services to agricultural development

•  Reaching “the last mile”

•  Partner agricultural research with centers of excellence on climate science and services •  UN Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS)

•  Climate Services Partnership (CSP)

•  Regional climate centers

•  CCAFS Theme 2 hosted by IRI

•  …

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Reaching Millions of Farmers with Climate Services: Mission Possible •  The time is right for climate services. •  CCAFS aims to support partners to scale up relevant

climate services for millions of farmers •  New CCAFS Flagship 2: Climate Services and Climate-

Informed Safety Nets expands collaboration opportunity http://ccafs.cgiar.org/call-concept-notes-ccafs-flagships#.UqsFVvZByKc

For  more  informa+on,  contact:  Jim  Hansen,  CCAFS  Flagship  2  Leader  jhansen@iri.columbia.edu  Arame  Tall,  Climate  Services  Coordinator  a.tall@cgiar.org  

Women  Farmers  in  Amtrar,  Himachal  Pradesh  (India),  benefi.ng  from  agromet  advisories.    A.  Tall,  CCAFS