ITC joins arms with Microsoft, Skymet to insulate tobacco farmers from climate vagaries

That local weather change is adversely impacting agriculture isn’t any information. However a little-known reality is that it’s inflicting intensive harm to the tobacco crop in India — inflicting an estimated lack of ₹800-900 crore in export revenues. “Due to the biotic and abiotic stresses attributable to the vagaries of local weather, the farmers are shedding out on the output,” H N Ramaprasad, the Chief Government of ITC’s tobacco enterprise, informed businessline.

He cites the instance of tobacco farmers in Karnataka whose output fell to about 60 million kg (mkg) in opposition to the 90-100-mkg restrict set by the Tobacco Board in 2021 and 2022. 

For starters, the Board, an arm of the Union Commerce Ministry, regulates the tobacco crop measurement. After discussing with the stakeholders, it comes out with an annual crop measurement. The farmers can’t develop greater than this.

India exported an mixture  2.19 lakh tonnes of tobacco and tobacco value ₹6,529.30 crore in 2021-22. ITC has a share of 35 per cent within the nation’s exports. 

Risky climate

“We’ve got seen that local weather change is leading to floods and droughts, that are adversely impacting the crop at completely different levels. Be it El-Nino or La Nina, farmers are shedding out as a result of unstable climate situations equivalent to floods and droughts,” he stated.

“With a view to assist farmers mitigate the issue, we now have devised a structured programme in 2021 and tied up with 4 corporations to gather information to precisely forecast the climate situations over the following few weeks,” Ramprasad stated. “We collect the data from our companions equivalent to Microsoft and SkyMet and collate them into simply comprehensible and actionable insights, earlier than disseminating the identical by way of WhatsApp teams and thru Zoom calls,” he stated.

Since it’s a regulated crop, the variety of farmers is finite, permitting the corporate to achieve out to these within the susceptible areas. The agency has chosen the coastal areas of Nellore and Prakasam districts, that are susceptible to excessive occasions, in Andhra Pradesh. After piloting the weather of the instrument package that it gadgets in over 70,000 hectares in these two districts, the corporate has prolonged it to tobacco-growing areas in Mysore, which produce export-oriented tobacco.

Making it climate-resilient

“We’ve got added 70,000 hectares extra in Karnataka below the local weather mitigation programme, taking the entire space below the programme at 1.40 lakh hectares,” he stated.

The incidence of two seasons of drought adopted by equal variety of moist climate seasons introduced down the manufacturing of Indian conventional flue-cured crop to sub-optimal ranges of 74-87 mkg from a possible of greater than 120 mkg. “The tobacco grown in Mysore space is export-oriented, with 75 per cent of the output from right here is being exported. The hostile climate impacted crop measurement and high quality,” he stated.

The programme was devised to make tobacco crop climate-resilient and guarantee farmers don’t miss out on the export alternative. 

Paring damages

In addition to sending the climate forecasts, the corporate would additionally counsel farmers what to do in occasions of a flood or extended dry climate. “This makes the farmer prepared and reduces the damages,” he stated. He cited the instance of the cyclone Mandous in 2022, the place he claimed the intervention helped the farmers scale back damages to only 4-5 per cent as in opposition to the estimated losses of 40 per cent.

The programme entails a forecast-based crop advisory, rain/drought hotspot mapping, drones, weather-based rising fashions and intensive use of analytical instruments equivalent to AI and Information Analytics.

Going ahead, the corporate would concentrate on varietal improvement to assist the crops face biotic and abiotic stresses.