1.
ICT and Agricultural Risk Management: A “No-Regrets” Approach
to Improved Water Management, Food Security, and Employment
in Dry Areas
Paul B Siegel, Consultant, The World Bank
psiegel@worldbank.org pbs11pbs@yahoo.com
PhD, Agricultural Economics, Virginia Tech, USA
Keynote Presentation
International Conference on Policies for Water and Food Security in Dry Areas
Cairo, Egypt, June 24-26, 2013
International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas
ICARDA

2.
“Sustainability megaforces”
facing agri-business and farmers
KPMG, 2012. Expect the Unexpected: Building business value in a changing world.
Climate Change
Poverty and
Food Security
Competition
for resources
Increasing
demand

3.
No Regrets Approach to Agricultural Risk Management
• Increased weather and market variability and extremes
• Increased population growth, urbanization, changing diets
• Changing land use patterns/practices (e.g., biofuels, conversion of agricultural land)
• Political instability, government changes and changing policies, including safety nets
• Increased poverty, food and water insecurity, unemployment
=> Traditional knowledge/experience and “averages” not relevant indicators for future
=> Need for site-specific information (e.g., weather, prices, agro-ecological potential)
“No-Regrets” Approach: try to identify present priorities for investments and actions
that provide economic, social, and environmental benefits whether or not there is
climate change in the future. => win-win investments for sustainable development
=> investments in information and communications technologies (ICT)
=> investments in health/nutrition, water/sanitation, education, family planning
=> investments in sustainable land management, water and energy conservation

4.
Food Security and Climate Change in Dry Areas
Amman Declaration, February 2010
• ICARDA and partners organized a conference in Amman in February 2010 on:
Food Security and Climate Change in Dry Areas.
• The Amman Declaration called for initiatives to enhance food security and reduce
vulnerability to climate change, including the establishment of:
a) regional commission for food security and climate change,
b) regional network for weather monitoring, and
c) knowledge system on adaptation and resilience practices.
• In particular: b) “Establish local, national, and regional networks for weather
monitoring, and market information, and a disseminating system for farmers
towards adapting their planting, efficient watering, and harvesting decisions.”
• Kuwait Declaration November 2011: social safety nets and insurance for the
poor, promotion of effective risk management and risk reduction strategies.
(WMO, FAO, ICARDA, others)

5.
Key “Take Away” Messages
• Need for locally generated and “owned” information on weather, and related socio-
economic and agro-ecological variables, with ongoing monitoring and evaluation.
• The same information and ICT used for agricultural risk management are needed for
decision-making to improve water management, food security, and employment.
• Locally-based early warning systems combining remote sensing and ground-based
monitoring of key variables are the foundation of agricultural risk management, and
should be linked to sub-national, national, and regional networks for information
collection, analysis, and dissemination.
• The link between early warning systems, insurance, and flexible/responsive social
safety nets is use of objective and transparent “triggers” (or “indices”), and decision
rules that can mobilize rapid responses in an efficient and equitable manner.
• There is a need to consider new institutional arrangements for linking
farmers-extension-research that are site-specific and draw upon innovations in
ICT, and early warning and rapid response systems.
• There is a major role for young people in ICT for agricultural risk management.
 ICT and agricultural risk management are “no-regrets” priority investments to
improve water management, food security, and employment in dry areas.

6.
The Way Forward

7.
Agricultural Risk Management: Decision-Making Before and After
“Events”
• Ex-ante Decision-Making Before “Events”: based on forecasts, proactive and not reactive
Risk Prevention and Reduction:
=> prevent risks: destroy pests/diseases before they can cause losses
=> reduce exposure to risks by adjusting assets/livelihoods (i.e., adaptation to risks):
a) diversification of production, consumption, marketing, b) adoption of new
technologies, c) sustainable land/water management practices.
Compensation Arrangements for Potential Losses from Risk Events:
=> savings: financial, livestock, storage of grains
=> risk transfer: index-based insurance contracts based on events using triggers
=> social safety nets with clear and transparent decision rules using triggers based on early warning
systems and/or actual outcomes  flexible and responsive social safety nets (“planned coping”)
• Ex-post Decision-Making After “Events”: based on actual outcomes
Ad-hoc Risk Coping:
=> unplanned coping: sell and/or degrade assets (e.g., livestock, food in storage), soil/water
mining, less food consumption and/or less nutritious food consumption, take children out of school
=> can lead to irreversible damage to assets and livelihoods

8.
Ex-ante Agricultural Risk Management  Information
Management
Need for information on:
• Weather (high/low temperatures, rainfall, wind speeds, moisture)
• Water availability, food/fodder/feed availability (for plants, animals, humans)
• Market prices and information on logistics for inputs and outputs
• Pests and diseases (for plants, animals, humans)
• Available technologies and applications (research and extension, private sector)
• Policies and policy changes (food/water/energy policies, social safety net policies)
• Local socio-economic, environmental conditions (livelihoods and hazard mapping)
This information is site-specific, and dynamic
• Need for local weather forecasts and local monitoring of relevant variables
• Need for multi-disciplinary, multi-sectoral information => crowdsourcing
• Potential to draw upon innovations in ICT

9.
Agricultural Risk Management: ICT for Decision Support
Systems
• ICTs include mobile phones, internet, computers, computer
software, smart cards, barcodes for scanning
• ICT can provide timely information in a less costly manner to farmers in remote
areas and/or to farmers lacking access to “conventional” channels of information
• Declining costs and multi-functionality of ICTs make them attractive for many
applications to manage risks and opportunities
• ICT linked to global positioning systems (GPS), geographic information systems
(GIS), spatial data infrastructures (SDI), remote sensing => satellite technologies
Possible Uses of ICT for Agriculture for Improved Decision-Making:
• Early warning information: weather, prices, pests/diseases, policies
• Advisory information: how to plan and manage risks and opportunities
• Information and Improved Access to markets, credit, insurance
• Traceability and Logistics along supply chain: from inputs to final consumer

10.
Multi-functional Mobile Phone Applications

11.
Case Studies
Risk Prevention and Reduction:
=> Local Weather Forecasting and Monitoring, Turkey
=> mKrishi Mobile Agro-Advisory Services, India
Compensation for Potential Losses from Risks:
=> Kilimo Salama Index-Based Weather Insurance, Kenya/Rwanda
Planned Coping:
=> Productive Social Safety Nets, Ethiopia/Kenya/Rwanda
New Arrangements for Farmer-Extension-Research:
=> Technology Transfer via Lead Farmers using Mobile Phones, Tunisia

12.
Turkey: Local Weather Forecasting and Monitoring
.
Problem: lack of timely local weather information to predict, prepare for, and
respond to pests and low temperatures (frosts) in fruit orchards.
Objective: provide farmers with daily local weather forecasts along with an early
warning system to help monitor key variables, with links to researchers.
Key Components: started in 2008, integrated pest management (IPM).
a) 5 mini meteorological stations in province (temp, rain, wind, soil moisture).
b) 14 reference farms that measure weather (temp) and monitor pest populations.
c) Links with researchers/extension to predict pest outbreaks and send alerts.
d) Use of mobile phones to communicate information to/from farmers.
e) Daily updates and alerts sent via mobile phones.
Benefits: early warning and monitoring allows for precise application of pesticides to
prevent pests (major cost savings), early warning for frost allows for some risk
reduction activities (reduces losses). Information for researchers to update models.
=> More efficient input use, ecologically better, increased income and employment.

13.
Weather Station in Farmer’s Field and Monitoring for Pests
Kastamonu Province, Turkey

14.
mKRISHI: Mobile Agro-Advisory System, India
Problem: farmers lack access to timely local market information, and site-specific technical
information on weather, soil conditions, fertilizer and pesticide applications, and crop rotations.
Objectives:
• Connect farmers to a system that can help them make better decisions about agricultural
production and marketing, and to protect the environment.
• Provide farmers with technical information specific to their plots of land.
• Link farmers with input suppliers, output markets, banks, insurance companies, extension
services, universities, and research institutes.
Key Components: started 2007 by Tata Consultancy Services to promote “New Green Revolution”
a) Farmers linked to mobile phone network.
b) Use GPS/GIS to provide site-specific, individualized information to farmers.
b) Decentralized network of automatic weather stations.
c) Advisory services using two-way communication between farmers and extension agents.
e) Messages in local languages (vocal and/or written), graphic formats.
d) Use of SDI to link data to multiple stakeholders.
Benefits: improved access to markets (lower costs for inputs, logistics, higher prices for
outputs), more efficient use of water, fertilizers and pesticides, and greater confidence of farmers
to adopt new technologies that improve livelihood opportunities, incomes, and employment.

15.
mKRISHI Infrastructure

16.
Kilimo Salama: Weather Index-Based Input Insurance
Problems: low rainfall areas with high rainfall variability (drought, flood) and
associated pests/diseases, risk-averse farmers with low productivity and reluctance to
adopt improved technologies using purchased inputs (seed, fertilizer, pesticide), lack
of access and/or high costs of credit and insurance for small farmers.
Objective:
• Objective: provide small farmers with low-cost insurance packaged with
inputs, credit, and extension to lower the risks for adopting higher-yielding
technologies.
Key Components: started 2007 in Kenya
a) Partnership: Syngenta Foundation, Safaricom, insurance company, input
suppliers, credit providers, researchers, Kenya Meteorological Department.
b) Automated weather stations to record local weather data.
c) Determination of weather index “triggers” for too little or too much rain, and/or
too high or too low temperatures.
d) Linked to input dealers, using barcodes to record input purchases.
e) Use of cellphones by farmers to pay insurance premiums, receive extension
messages, and receive insurance payouts.
Benefits: increased adoption of improved technologies, empowerment of farmers.
=> 75,000 farmers in Kenya, 20,000 in Rwanda. Starting index insurance for livestock.

17.
Kilimo Salama: Weather-Index Insurance
• Index based on agronomic models
that calculate rainfall requirements
for crops => from researchers.
• “Trigger” based on based on weather
station data, along with district level
yield data, satellite data.
• “Trigger” set for too little rain or too
much rain, and diseases based on
district yield data.
• Rainfall index, area yield index.

18.
Productive Social Safety Nets (Ethiopia/Kenya/Rwanda)
Problem: low rainfall areas with chronic food insecurity, and transient food insecurity.
Objective: establish system of flexible/responsive social safety nets that provide assistance to food
insecure households in “normal times”, and households vulnerable to food insecurity when needed.
Key Components: started in Ethiopia in 2005, DFID and World Bank, other partners have joined.
a) Risk reduction: extension for health/nutrition, water/sanitation, family planning.
b) Public works focused on risk reduction and asset building activities (e.g., water
harvesting/catchment, irrigation), sustainable land management (e.g., forestation, terracing).
c) Compensation for losses: micro-insurance, safety nets. => pilots of “work-for-insurance”
d) Combine early warning systems with preparedness plans, contingency plans and funding.
e) Early warning system uses remote sensing data (e.g. NDVI, WRSI) to generate indices that are
“triggers” for mobilizing resources BEFORE disasters occur, combined with ground based monitoring
of human, plant, and livestock health related variables, water availability, market prices, etc.
f) Emphasis on community-based monitoring and local governments, linked to national systems.
g) “Off-the-shelf” public works for transient food insecure HHs to prevent asset sales/degradation.
h) Well-established M&E system.
Benefits: reduction of chronic and transient food insecurity and some “graduation” from food
insecurity, improved water and natural resource management, higher productivity, increased
employment, large data base to correlate weather with socio-economic and environmental data.

19.
LEAP Yield Reduction in % (2002 Maize_Meher)
Ethiopia Safety Nets
Seasonal Mapping & Review
Tool (SMaRT)
No. beneficiaries
LEAP crop yield
reduction data by
woreda
Beneficiary
numbers are
then exported
back to LEAP
and mapped
Remote Sensing of Landscape plus Livelihoods Mapping to Predict “Problem”

20.
New Arrangements for Farmer-Extension-Research: Tunisia
• Regional project Enhancing Food Security in Arab Countries, led by ICARDA.
• Large-scale pilot sites in six countries in West Asia and North Africa.
• One of project sites in Tunisia located in a region that accounts for 40% of the country’s irrigated area.
• Experimental trials are evaluating new wheat varieties and improved irrigation methods.
• The irrigation experiments test different tools (e.g. water balance measurement, use of tensiometers)
that can help farmers decide when and how much to irrigate, in order to maximize water-use efficiency.
• On-station research is complemented by demonstration plots on farmers’ field that promote drip
irrigation and improved irrigation scheduling.
• The project is testing a new method of technology transfer.
• ‘Lead farmers’ are identified, who will each mentor ten ‘satellite’ farmers.
• The project has provided mobile phones to the lead farmers, for easier communication with other
farmers, extension services, and researchers.
 This approach is adapted from similar methods used in India.
From: “What’s New at ICARDA”, Issue Number 8, 2012. http://www.icarda.org/blog/technological-change-agriculture-model-tunisia

21.
“No-Regrets” Recommendations
• Promote investments in information and ICT for agricultural risk management.
• Improve methods of information collection, analysis, and dissemination.
• Promote local networks of automatic weather stations, and simple on-farm
instruments to measure relevant variables (temperature, precipitation, wind
speeds, soil moisture) along with monitoring of pests, diseases, and market
prices/availability.
• Improve local early warning and rapid response systems using objective and
transparent “triggers” that are useful for insurance and social safety nets.
• Coordinate multi-disciplinary and multi-sectoral efforts to generate “triggers” based
on scientific evidence with constant updating/verification => adaptive research.
• Consider new decentralized arrangements for linking farmers-extension-
research, including new types of information and technology transfer.
• Link local farmer-extension-research networks with sub-national, national and
regional networks for information collection, analysis, and dissemination.
• Involve youth in ICT for agricultural risk management, especially as monitors.

22.
Thank You.
Productive Safety Nets in Rwanda: Public Works

23.
Select References
ICARDA website: http://www.icarda.org/blog/technological-change-agriculture-model-tunisia
Koshmatov, Talaibek (2011) “Making Weather Forecasts Work for Farmers: Examples from Turkey and Kyrgizstan.” Presentation at World Bank
ARD Days 2011, March 22-24, 2011. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTARD/Resources/ECA_WeatherForecasts.pdf
Kilimo Salama website: http://www.syngentafoundation.org/index.cfm?pageID=562
mKrishi website: http://www.tcs.com/resources/brochures/Pages/TCS_mKrishi-Mobile_Agro_Advisory_System.aspx
Bene, C. (2012) “Social Protection and Resilience to Climate and Disaster”. IDS Programme Briefing, Institute for Development
Studies, University of Sussex. http://www.ids.ac.uk/files/dmfile/ASP_Briefing_WebNew.pdf
Horn of Africa Risk Transfer for Adaptation (HARITA) http://www.oxfamamerica.org/files/harita-quarterly-report-oct-dec-2011_web.pdf-1
World Bank (2011) ICT in Agriculture: Connecting Smallholders to Knowledge, Networks, and Institutions. An e-Sourcebook. Report No. 64605.
Washington, D.C. http://www.ictinagriculture.org/sites/ictinagriculture.org/files/final_book_ict_agriculture.pdf
World Bank (2011) Understanding Volatility and Managing Risks. ARD Days 2011, March 22-24, 2011. Washington, D.C.
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTARD/0,,contentMDK:22815829~pagePK:210058~piPK:210062~theSitePK:336682,00.html
Siegel, P.B., J. Gatsinzi, and A. Kettlewell (2011) “Adaptive Social Protection in Rwanda: ‘Climate-proofing’ the Vision 2020 Umerenge
Programme”. IDS Bulletin. 42(6): 71-78. Institute for Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1759-5436.2011.00276.x/abstract
Siegel, P.B. J. Gatsinzi and A. Kettlewell (2011) “Adaptive Social Protection in Rwanda: A No-Regrets Approach to Increased Resilience in
Territorial Planning Context.” Paper presented at conference on “Social Protection for Social Justice” Institute for Development Studies
(IDS), University of Sussex, Brighton, UK. April 13-15, 2011. http://www.ids.ac.uk/files/dmfile/Siegeletal2011AdaptiveSocialProtectioninRwanda02CSPconferencedraft.pdf
Siegel, P.B. (2011) “No Regrets Approach to Decision-Making in a Changing Climate: Toward Adaptive Social Protection and Spatially Enabled
Governance.” Background Paper for World Resources Report 2010-2011. World Resources Institute: Washington, D.C.
http://www.worldresourcesreport.org/de/responses/no-regrets-approach-decision-making-changing-climate-toward-adaptive-social-protection-a
Jaffee, S., P.B. Siegel, and C. Andrews (2010) “Rapid Agricultural Supply Chain Risk Assessment: A Conceptual Framework.” Agriculture and
Rural Development Discussion Paper 47. The World Bank. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTCOMRISMAN/Resources/RapApRiskAssessment_Framework_Final_Web.pdf
Heltberg, R., P.B. Siegel, S.L. Jorgensen (2009) “Addressing Human Vulnerability to Climate Change: Toward a ‘No Regrets’ Approach.”
Global Environmental Change. 19(1): 89-99. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTSOCIALDEVELOPMENT/Resources/244362-1232059926563/5747581-1239131985528/GEC.pdf

24.
Other Possible Applications: Adaptive Agricultural
Research
From ICARDA’s website:
“The lack of information about the response of crop varieties to
variable environmental conditions limits accurate yield estimates and
fails to identify suitability for a given region or climate.”
=> improved local information on weather, and other variables could
help link agricultural research with development using methods of
upscaling and extrapolations for adaptive research.

25.
System
Site
Integration
• Problem analysis
• System analysis
• Site selection
• Solution development
(options)
• Extrapolation and
adaptation ICARDA
Integrated Research Site: INRM

26.
Transfer and AdaptationUp-scaling and Extrapolation
GIS and GIS + Bio-economic ModelingGIS
Integrated Research Site
Similar environment Different environment
Linking Research with Development

27.
Using GIS for Finding of Similarity with Research
Benchmark Sites for up scaling and diffusion of
Technology