Proposed agenda and slides for JEEViKA update (Sep 10 at 11am)
For reference, here are the slides we presented to Manoj on June 6 and the Concept Note
Open questions
Do we want to provide an update on VRP training; not part of this MRV project but may be important to cover
Key decisions / outcomes:
JEEViKA has clarity on project objectives
JEEViKA has visibility to project progress (present status vs. workplan shared on July 5. Link)
JEEViKA perspective on whether to double down on Gaya or extend to another district (and if so, which one) for rabi season and agrees to inform relevant district and block level leadership to support us
DG understands JEEViKA interests or concerns related to this project
Draft slides here
Meeting Notes and Followups
Anil feels that JEEViKA is already coordinating with CIMMYT and promoting climate smart practices; not clear what new thing DG is providing here
Want to see a more tangible benefit for farmers from all this data collection
Early sowing for wheat needs to happen between Nov 1 and 15; we need to get advisories ready ASAP to meet this date
Want a more detailed plan before committing to scale up and want a checkin meeting in September to align on next steps
Send a report that includes information presented in the slides ashok
Make sure Anil and Manoj have access to the kobo dashboard ashok
What is our vision for the MRV work? What is the benefit for the farmer? What is the new thing that JEEViKA and Digital Green are collaborating on?
See this writeup for context. Does this make sense to everyone and does it seem compelling? We need to review with Anil, Manoj and any others at JEEViKA to get their feedback/buy-in; can we preview and get feedback before presenting it more formally?
Building a farmer controlled digital profile. A few benefits of this:
Profile data can be used to tailor production advisories based on local conditions that improve productivity, income, resilience.
Data about how farmers are producing, especially for farmers who are following sustainable or climate smart practices, is increasingly important. If trusted by the market, it can unlock new buyers and improve access to finance.
Estimated emissions are of particular interest as there are some early stage carbon offset program underway (JEEViKA project w TERI and VNV Advisory in Araria. See here). Generating emission estimates is complicated so we are doing an ensemble approach with three climate models, will share the results w JEEViKA as this could be important for state climate action plan discussions.
For farmers to capitalize on these opportunities, they need to be able to make trusted, credible claims about their operations.
JEEViKA VRPs can play a unique role in helping generate a validated dataset about farmer practices.
For the data to be usable for farmers, they need to know what has been collected and summary statistics; we will build a simple mobile interface to provide this transparency to farmers and VRPs
For data to be valuable for the market, there needs to be a robust and transparent methodology for collection and validation which engenders trust in accuracy. This is what we are focused on putting in place; get support from EDF to ensure its credible.
Also, the data should be easily accessible and interoperable. There should be a well-structured API through which users can request data and where access can be managed by farmers who are owners of the data. DG is developing this as well.
There is the technical question about where the data is stored, we think the cloud is a great option when you consider performance, price, security, etc.
Another important consideration is who has access to and can use the data. We should work through the details and mechanics but our general view is that JEEViKA should have access as should farmers. Farmers should be able to control who the data is shared with. There are some great analogs for consent based sharing in the financial services space like the Account Aggregator framework which can be adapted for farmers. Our Farmstack protocol responds to these topics.
It will take time for this to come together, and we are close to securing funding for a 2 year project to build this out. While we prove out the larger vision this hypothesis, we are doing things that support farmers right away (eg, rabi plans)