Title: Transition from Climate Risk to Climate Smart Agriculture

Goal: What problems does it address? How will farmers and rural communities benefit? Where? Problems to be addressed: – Managing current climatic risks in the region How farmers and communities benefit: – Knowledge on climatic risk which help fine tuning agronomic strategies – Enabling them to make better decisions for livelihoods – Improve adaptive capacity of the farmers Where: Terai of Nepal Northern part of India Punjab of India and Pakistan Southern part India and Sri Lanka West Bengal and Bangladesh

How will you measure success – what is success? – Number of farmers using climatic services – Reduced fluctuation in production – Reduced relief requirements

Which of the “good practices” discussed in the workshop will be incorporated? How? – Partnership between agricultural and climate stakeholders at multiple levels – Involve female and youth farmers considering their particular needs – Participatory production and communication of agro-meteorological information, knowledge and policy development and planning

How will you involve farmer’s voices in the design? – The role of progressive and champion farmers in promoting and use of climatic information – Simple planning and decision making tools for farmers to integrate information in decision process and take action – Gender analysis of any farming community to gain maximum project effectiveness

What are the potential gender or social equity challenges, and how will you address them? – Limited social data at the community level – Lack of capacity to access information and make decisions How? – Tailoring the specific needs of the females and marginalized communities – Collection of data/information – Training/exposure

How will it connect with on-going climate and/or development initiatives? – Developing partnership with Pilot Project on Climate Resilient (PPCR) program in Nepal and Bangladesh – Link with Indian agro-met service and knowledge in capacity building (Centre for Excellence for capacity building) – Climate change, agriculture and food security programs in the countries How do you propose to get started? What are the next steps? – Regional planning and project writing workshop

Which are the necessary partners? – Met Agencies – Agricultural Institutions at various levels – ICT players that includes media – NGOs/farmer groups/local bodies – Private Sector players – Policy Makers – Donors/International Agencies

What financial and human resources are needed? Over what timeframe? How will they be provided and sustained? – To be identified in the planning workshop – Explore potential donor supports from the outside agencies Time line 5 year at least Provide Sustainability Mobilizing national Resources /SAARC