Time/date: Friday, Oct 29, 2021, 7am PDT / 7:30pm IST
...
CSISA consortium: Balwinder and Sonam (CYMMYT), Andy McDonald (Cornell)
US Davis: JK Ladha
Notes:
Update on funding: Last night (Oct 28) we received formal approval/notification from the donor, Sequoia Climate Fund. We expect a grant agreement shortly.
Update on partnership: A week ago we received a formal letter of support from JEEViKA.
Update on progress on the ground:
Ashok presented data summary and details collected (paddy land, urea used, green naturing practices, etc.) - 18 different data parameters. Link to presentation.
CSA practices followed currently by farmers: (1) water management (drying after transplanting), (2) green manuring/green gram, (3) application of jeevamrutha/ghanajeevamruta (but not used at large scale) and (4) aware of varietals (long/short term varieties)
CSISA MIP for wheat (Rabi 2021): early sowing, zero tillage variety promotion, irrigation mgmt, N optimization
DG has video resources available, but some other ones need to be made (short duration varieties, N optimization, water management, zero tillage)
Next steps: Kharif data collection (Nov/Dec), training to scale to 1600 farmers (Nov-March), and emission estimates for the initial 250 farmers (Jan)
Provide JEEViKA clarity on: proposed activities/advisories, digitization of VRP register, stats of GG estimation, and focus on CSA MRV on GHG emission co-benefits.
(Ashu) Data collected may not constitute a good baseline; need support from partners to get the parameters. We have worked with JEEViKA and their VRPs effectively and now we need to thin about where to next beyond Gaya.
(Andy): The broad brush recommendations on the slides are ok, but to prioritize need to take into account the geographies since some recommendations are geographic based.
Data points discussion - is this enough to make decision on advisories, models, co-benefits, etc.? With this data (currently for 250 farmers, soon for 1500 farmers), what else would the partners need to take the work forward?
(Ashu on chat) Data was not self-reported; it was collected by VRPs and validated at the block level by JEEViKA and DG staff
Need to take into account which lens to use and for what purpose.
Gaps in GHG accounting is water balance information - need to figure how to collect this as it is a driver of GHG emissions
Objective of work: (1) scalable model of data collection, (2) use data to quantify GHG emissions, (3) use that info to send advisories and apply practices to reduce GHG emissions
Suggestion to set up a technical committee
Proposed: Kritee, Balwinder, Sonam, Amresh(?), JK, Andy. From DG - Ashu and Falguni or Ashok.
Proposed idea: someone with behavioral science experience.
Propose that group is smaller at first
(Andy) Is this first analysis an ex-ante assessment of management practices, rather than GHG emissions?
Objective is to share with farmers what can be done and costs, not a full blown GHG accounting. This would show the entry points, which is critical.
Importance of behavior change rather than project-led interventions
Next steps:
Tech committee SOW and convening after Diwali
Follow up with partners with regards to contracting