Book of Extended summaries ISDA

International Conference on Reimagining Rainfed Agro-ecosystems: Challenges &
Opportunities during 22-24, December 2022 at ICAR-CRIDA, Hyderabad
Methodology
A baseline household survey of 360 respondents from 36 villages of the Ahmednagar, Jalna,
and Dhule districts of Maharashtra was conducted in December 2017. Randomly ten
households were selected from each village. The results of the baseline study helped to
restructure the strategies of the FarmPrecise application. In December 2021, an impact
assessment study was conducted with the same respondents to know the usefulness of the
FarmPrecise advisory. In the sample, 92 respondents (treatment group) installed and
adopted the FarmPrecise advisories, and 252 did farming as usual (control group). The
descriptive statistic method has been used for the analysis. Baseline data is compared to the
midterm data to understand the change in technology adaptation and agricultural practices.
Results
The use of mobile applications as an information source for agro-met advisories has
increased compared to the baseline scenario. The study finding showed that the use of
mobile applications for agricultural information sources increased from 35.6 to 44.2 % of
households. Based on the survey of assessing the number of farmers relying on different
mobile applications as agricultural information source in the initial times majority of them
depended primarily on whatsapp (baseline), But in midterm 27% of the HHs were using
FarmPrecise, followed by youtube, whatsapp, facebook and other mobile applications.
Season
Perceived benefits of FarmPrecise advisories
Climate-related avoided
loss (per acre)
HHs
No of
crops
Amount
(Rs)
Avg. input cost saved
(per acre)
HHs
No of
crops
Amount
(Rs)
Avg. productivity
increased (per acre)
809 | Page Institutional and policy innovations for accelerated and enhanced impacts
HHs
No of
crops
Produ
ction
(Qt)
Perennial 5 6 1675.0 5 6 3908.3 4 5 2.9
Kharif 53 81 2909.7 51 78 1995.8 51 76 1.4
Rabi 33 43 2514.4 32 41 1584.8 32 41 1.7
Total/ 56 130 2366.4 55 125 2496.3 55 122 2.0
average
Source: Sampled household survey Dec-2017 and Dec-2021
Perceived benefits by adopting FarmPrecise advisories indicate that 56 households have
avoided climate-related losses on an average of Rs 2366 per acre as seen in the table.
Besides, 55 users also saved Rs 2496 per acre on various agricultural input costs. In
addition, 55 users have reported an increase in average crop productivity of up to 2 quintals
per acre. The features like real-time weather information, weather-based crop-specific
advisories, updated market rates, and on-time support from the community forum of the
FarmPrecise app helped in increasing crop productivity, saving input costs, and avoiding