Digital delivery of weather forecasts to millions of farmers to boost their climate resilience
As climate change increasingly disrupts agricultural patterns, farmers face growing challenges in managing their crops and resources. Reliable and timely weather information is crucial for making informed decisions that can optimize productivity and reduce losses. Yet in many areas in low- and middle-income countries, there is limited availability of sufficiently localized forecasts, and farmers have expressed lack of trust in and comprehension of the forecasts they do access. Weather information is consistently one of the most requested topics from farmers across the geographies where PxD works.
To address this challenge, PxD and our partners are delivering high-quality weather forecasts to inform farmer decision-making in different settings across India. Our service design includes experimentation to ensure that our forecasts are understandable, trusted, and actionable. We improve and scale our services to help farmers navigate the challenges of unpredictable weather.
At-scale dissemination of seasonal forecasts in collaboration with MoA&FW
In partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare (MoA&FW), the Indian Meteorological Department, the Development Innovation Lab India (DIL-India), and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, PxD launched a large-scale initiative to deliver timely, actionable weather forecasts to farmers across India.
During monsoon 2024, PxD successfully provided total-rainfall and monsoon-onset forecasts to more than 9 million farmers across five Indian states—Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana, and Chhattisgarh—via SMS. This offered farmers crucial early warning to optimize resource use, adjust cropping strategies, and minimize risk. PxD and DIL-India provided technical expertise and designed the forecast message service, and the MoA&FW covered all dissemination and monitoring costs.
The pilot study showed that there was a strong demand for the service, with 89% of surveyed farmers1
From a surveyed sub-sample of 339 farmers. expressing interest in receiving future forecasts, and 90% finding the information useful for planting decisions. Encouraged by these results, PxD and our partners are planning to scale the initiative in monsoon 2025, by expanding outreach to tens of millions of farmers, identifying additional dissemination channels, and integrating A/B testing to enhance service effectiveness.
Experimentation in disseminating short-range forecasts with the Coffee Board of India
Coffee is highly sensitive to weather conditions, yet there is limited availability of sufficiently localized forecasts. Farmers in India’s coffee growing states have expressed limited trust in and comprehension of the forecasts they can access. Building on insights generated by previous lab-in-the-field experiments, PxD developed weather advisory content for users of our coffee advisory service, Coffee Krishi Taranga (CKT), which is a voice-based advisory platform developed in collaboration with the Coffee Board of India. We partnered with Climate Forecast Applications Network (CFAN) to develop highly localized, 5-day rainfall forecasts suited to coffee farmers’ contexts. The service was pilot-launched in April 2024 with 1,200 coffee farmers in Karnataka. The service was then expanded to include 50,000 farmers. As part of the service roll out, PxD randomized users into different groups and tested various forecast types to assess farmer engagement, reliance, trust, and comprehension, and to gather insights for improving future services. Key findings show that farmers respond better to probabilistic forecasts (e.g. “There is a 60% chance of 1 inch or more rain. Median rainfall is 1.3 inches.”) than to deterministic forecasts (e.g. “1.3 inches of rain is expected”). Farmers receiving probabilistic forecasts were more likely to adopt CKT as their primary forecast source, express higher trust in its accuracy, develop more precise expectations of upcoming weather, and align their expectations more closely with the forecasts.
PxD is iteratively building knowledge, experience, and understanding of key aspects of providing this service, in order to increase the accuracy of, trust in, comprehension of, and actionability of the weather forecasts, with the goal to deliver high-quality weather information to millions of smallholder farmers across geographies.
“Recently, Coffee Krishi Taranga began offering weather forecasts, which have been particularly beneficial. For example, knowing in advance about heavy rainfall helps us decide whether to apply manure or not. We also understand that shade management isn’t feasible during heavy rains, so we can plan accordingly. The weather updates from Coffee Krishi Taranga are more accurate than those from other sources. I trust the service more now. Weather forecasts are also extremely helpful when drying coffee, as we can adjust our timing based on the weather. I believe this type of information should continue to be shared, as it not only helps us in our own farming but also enables us to pass on valuable advice to our neighbours.”
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