July 2 2021 Meeting Notes

Recording

(Passcode: #10GtpFf)

Attendees

Meeting Notes

Topic 1: Does our proposal have credible reach / adoption / emission reduction numbers.

Discussion
- Ashu provided rationale for current numbers.
- JEEViKA currently reaches ~400k farmers via video enabled extension; we expect that to increase to ~715k over the next couple years as JEEViKA is making significant investments to institutionalize this approach
- Estimate around 60k farmers receive advisories which highlight yield adjusted emission reducing practices today and expect this to increase to 300k towards the end of 2023 as the video approach reaches more farmers and more advisories have a climate lens
- Based on recent independent assessment, we estimate about 20% of farmers receiving advisories adopt highlight practices and expect this can increase to about 40% through improved targeted; this is the basis for our estimate of emissions reduction (assuming each package of practices adopted delivers a saving of 0.5 tons per hectare
- The percent of farmers for whom we track emissions vs. a baseline will be smaller; starting at ~2,000 next season and ramping up to 40k by end of the project period
Decisions / To Dos / Action Items:
- @Ashu Sikri (Unlicensed) to revisit numbers based on TAC feedback. Completed July 19
- Key change is to reduce GHG emission reduction from an adoption from 0.5 to 0.2 tons per hectare
- Ramped down reach and % of farmers adopting practices as well; this is all reflected in latest draft of the OOM

Topic 2: What are the "no regrets" practices which improve yield adjusted GHG emissions that we will promote starting rabi 2021/2022?

Discussion
- CSISA team shared that the practices which we can focus on immediately are: (i) Eliminating excess nitrogen fertilizer application (ii) Increasing utilization of irrigation
- These are well suited for the DG + JEEViKA model as they are knowledge based and don't require a lot of investment
- Residue burning requires a bit more analysis and may be ready soon
- Practices like zero tillage require require mechanization / service provision / business development which will take a bit more time to coordinate
- CSISA team has done some landscape level segmentation to tailor advisories and we should organize our scale up with JEEViKA to focus on locations where we have strong evidence for applicability of practices
Decisions / To Dos / Action Items
- Call with Sonam and Kritee to go into more detail - Completed July 12
- Develop a sensitivity analysis for estimate of GHG emission reduction from proposed practices
- Better understand how much tailoring of advisories is possible and at what level of granularity

Topic 3: How will we model changes in emissions associated with these practices?

Discussion
- A credible / reliable way of accounting for GHG emissions changes form adoption of various practices is much needed
- In addition to DNDC, we need to look at APSIM, CFT, DAYCENT/CENTURY and our own simple back of the envelope calcs (eg, nitrogen surplus)
- Think about the models as a way to generate improved emissions factors relevant to regional field conditions in Bihar and not necessarily as a way to get field level estimates; this ultimately will help us get to a better GHG accounting system
Decisions / To Dos / Action Items
- Agreed to expand scope of program to include a model inter-comparison between DNDC, CFT and CENTURY
- Agreed that we should engage with model developers to figure out how to develop improved emission factors