FarmerZone is the Department of Biotechnology’s vision for a cloud-based service that offers curated data solutions for improved agricultural productivity and market connectivity to smallholder farmers. It is expected to serve as a multi-purpose window for dissemination of information to the farmers; from dealing with climate change issues to land size, soil characteristics, water availability, seed quality and market linkages.
IORA was the overall management partner on behalf of DBT, and was involved for developing the market linkage related aspects of the application – MarketZone. We led the expansion of partnerships with other research institutes and private sector players involved in potato value chain. FarmerZone was successful in registering more than 6000 potato farmers from Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. These farmers can now easily access a multi-lingual database of more than 2500 verified market related sources.

The SAMPADA Yojana aimed to create modern infrastructure with efficient supply chain management to further the growth of food processing sector. IORA supported the Ministry of Development of North East Region (MDoNER) in developing Detailed Project Reports to access the SAMPADA funds under the Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI).

We assisted in creating an interactive web-based interface, which will allow the end-users to visualise and highlight the expected changes in Kcal production, diversity, water usage, and farmer’s income under different intervention scenarios. Vector layers were further generated, basis the observations shared by IIT- Mumbai and Vertiver, later on hosted on the Geoserver. We are also providing post-launch maintenance for the same for one year.

IORA was commissioned by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) to formulate a national policy on Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA). CSA is an integrated approach that aims to sustainably increase agricultural productivity, farmer incomes and food security. It aims to build climate resilience in agriculture and reduce GHG emissions from the sector. IORA developed the national policy’s corresponding operational guidelines that enable relevant targeted convergence of ‘packages of practices’ at village cluster level in the most vulnerable districts of India, as defined by Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture (CRIDA).

IORA conducted a comprehensive climate vulnerability assessment of peanut crop in Junagarh (Gujarat) for GIZ India. We carried out an analysis of historical climate trends in the location and future projections for temperature and rainfall. We further carried out stakeholder-mapping of the peanut value-chain, multi-variate analysis and development of farm level GHG emission inventories. IORA devised pragmatic, gender-sensitive Climate Adaptation and Mitigation Practices (CAMP) for peanut cropping. We conducted two ‘Training of Trainers’ (ToT) (online and offline) for large scale dissemination of proposed sustainable agricultural practices and adaptation strategies. We also developed a case study booklet on ‘Climate Change Adaptation Practices in Rainfed Peanut Cultivation from India and across the World’.

IORA is currently working to assess the climate vulnerability of mint farming system in Barabanki District, Uttar Pradesh. We are mapping the regional vulnerability of the crop to climate change along with site and crop-specific risks and impacts. We will develop pragmatic, gender-sensitive adaptation and mitigation strategies based on our analysis. IORA will also identify and map sources of GHG emissions in the mint crop value chain to feed into a framework for future assessments.

‘Transforming India’s Green Revolution by Research and Empowerment for Sustainable Food Supplies’ (TIGR ESS) Programme (funded by UKRI GCRF), is a collaboration between UK and India to build a second, more sustainable Green Revolution in India. Under the programme, we conducted a multi-tier socioeconomic household survey of 500 farmers cultivating millets in five states of India. This was carried out to gain an understanding of farmer preferences for growing millets, farmer livelihoods, cultivation practices, market linkages and consumer perceptions of millets.
IORA in partnership with Vertiver Pvt. Limited went on to define gender roles, trends in changing weather patterns due to climate change and digital connectivity of farmers. This aided in the development of recommendations for programme approaches for enhancing millet growth in India, as well as development of policy interventions to improve the value chain of millet cultivation.
Implemented across 4 agro-ecological zones of India (Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Karnataka), the programme aimed to investigate the key food security issues. IORA also addressed the sustainable agriculture challenges and supported in building engagement & empowerment of local communities. We also advocated for gender equality in farming systems while understanding food & nutrition across communities.

The Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) engaged IORA to estimate GHG emissions in Small Tea Growers (STG) tea gardens. We supported in carrying out a Carbon Footprint Analysis of tea value chain in Small tea growers (STG) of Assam and West Bengal, and identified the relevant mitigation strategies for a low-carbon tea production system. Package of Practices (PoP) amongst small tea growers providing an estimation of emissions from the tea production process, was also mapped. We identified relevant mitigation strategies for a low carbon tea-production system giving due considerations to socio-economic parameters including gender roles. Our work contributes to India’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and highlights the need to develop financially viable, bankable, climate resilient & sustainable tea-cultivation business models.