Agricultural stakeholders need to understand how climate risks and their exposure to them are changing so that they can make plans, decisions, and investments that will reduce vulnerability and build resilience. AOn 21 June 2024, World Resources Institute (WRI) in collaboration with ICAR-Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture (ICAR-CRIDA), Hyderabad, and National Agro Foundation (NAF), Chennai conducted a technical consultation workshop on AgriAdapt, a free online climate risk tool that helps value chain actors in the rice, cotton and coffee value chains to understand climate risks at ICAR-CRIDA.

The workshop was attended by nearly 30 agriculture scientists, agrometeorology experts, and adaptation researchers from various institutes in Hyderabad. The inputs gathered will be used to improve the current offering of the AgriAdapt tool, particularly to add local-level climate risk data and propose appropriate adaptation interventions.

Scientists from ICAR-CRIDA highlighted the importance of climate advisory for resilient agricultural value chains. Nearly two-thirds of the cultivated cotton area in India is rainfed and vulnerable to climate risks such as delayed onset of monsoons, high temperatures, and unseasonal rainfall. Adapting to climate risks requires promoting water, land, and nutrient management techniques among farmers. Pests like pink bollworm which affects cotton crops are also likely to survive beyond farm gate levels. Therefore, appropriate measures need to be taken across value chains to address the negative impacts of climate change.

WRI is currently in the process of updating and expanding local and granular level data on the AgriAdapt platform and adding an adaptation measures menu. You can learn more about it at www.agriadapt.org