A National Workshop on 'Forecasting Techniques and Decision Support System for Climate-Resilient Agriculture in Rainfed Ecosystems' was organized by the National Rainfed Area Authority (NRAA), Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare (DA&FW), Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare (MoA&FW), Government of India (GoI), on 6 March 2024 in New Delhi. The workshop focussed on successful solutions to adopt and promote digital agriculture in India, and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)-led technical cooperation project, in collaboration with NRAA, DA&FW and the Weather Risk Management Services Pvt. Ltd (WRMS), titled 'Technical support to develop forecasting/predictive techniques to assist vulnerable farmers and planners at district and state level to make informed decisions on crop choices and plans for rainfed agriculture'.

The Chief Guest of the event, Mr Faiz Ahmad Kidwai, Additional Secretary, DA&FW and CEO NRAA in his inaugural speech, highlighted the efforts undertaken to promote digital agriculture in India, and the need to make digital agriculture a public good accessible to all stakeholders in the ecosystem, particularly marginal farmers. Mr Franklin L. Khobung, Joint Secretary (RFS), DA&FW, stressed the need to empower communities, especially smallholder farmers by adopting climate-resilient agriculture approaches in the country.

Mr Takayuki Hagiwara, FAO Representative in India delivered the keynote address and praised the initiatives of the Government of India in promoting digital agriculture and integrating technologies to benefit farmers. He emphasized that India’s agriculture is predominantly rainfed and therefore there is an urgent need to develop forecasting and predictive technologies for farmers to ensure better decision-making at farm levels. He highlighted the joint initiatives undertaken by FAO and NRAA with support from WRMS in creating such predictive and forecasting tools and technologies to aid vulnerable farmers and make informed decisions on crop choices, particularly in rainfed areas.

Mr Anuj Kumbat, CEO, WRMS, presented insights and the initiatives adopted under the FAO-NRAA collaborative project. He highlighted the importance of delivering high-quality on-ground services and implementing risk management through technological interventions. He also gave an overview of the outreach and interventions in forecasting/predictive techniques and tools developed using multiple data points and big data analytics to aid vulnerable farmers in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, and Maharashtra under the project. The project also trained local resource persons and promoted them as rural extension workers in utilizing the digital tools for deployment with rainfed farmers. Through these interventions, the project reduced the impact of the risk (weather, biological, market/price) faced by rainfed area farmers in the targeted regions. Farmers from Maharashtra also shared their experiences and how the predictive tools helped him in saving their agricultural produce from the rains on time.

The day-long workshop also included a series of presentations on the initiatives undertaken by the Government of India in adopting and promoting digital agriculture in the country. Dr C S Murthy, Director, Mahalanobis National Crop Forecast Centre (MNCFC), DA&FW, presented on ‘Geo-spatial Solutions for Climate Resilient Agriculture’.

Mr Samuel Praveen, Joint Secretary (Extension), DA&FW gave a detailed presentation on the MoA&FW’s most recent digital initiative ‘Virtually Integrated System to Access Agriculture Resources (VISTAAR)’. The platform aims to transform the agriculture ecosystem, making it a significant component of the Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) for agriculture, to disseminate timely and contextual advisories to farmers. He highlighted that VISTAAR is an open, interoperable, and federated public network to democratize and contextualize knowledge, empower farmer voices, and amplify the collective wisdom of the ecosystem through exponential artificial intelligence (AI). This network will facilitate the discovery and fulfilment of verified agriculture content, best practices, and agri-skilling across diverse private and public provider platforms, driving innovation and progress in agriculture through a collaborative approach.

The workshop analysed the best practices of forecasting/predictive techniques and assessed the approaches in use to assist the local farmers in India. The experts present at the workshop emphasized the significance of developing a system that can be implemented and adopted by the government at various scales, ensuring its accessibility to all stakeholders.

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