Fighting Drought with Information

Addakal and its surrounding villages in Andhra Pradesh, India are predominantly agrarian. Farmers here work in a harsh, semi arid environment cultivating groundnut, sunflower and vegetables and rearing cattle for their livelihoods. Frequent droughts and lack of access to information has led to low crop yields for several years in a row.

While the villagers have no control over when drought occurs, they can cope with it better with the right information and pre­paredness. Enter the Virtual Academy for the Semi-Arid Tropics (VASAT), an informal and virtual information, communication and capacity building coalition that aims to empower vulnerable rural communities to cope with drought. Established by ICRISAT and its partners in 2003, VASAT links rural farm communities with researchers, intermediaries and markets through an inter­face of information and communication technology (ICT) and open-distance learning (ODL) methods. It is a project of the ICT-KM program of the CGIAR. ICRISAT implements the project in partnership with ILRI and IWMI with a host of national and international organizations.

ICRISAT set up a pilot information hub with low-cost Internet connectivity in Addakal, partnering with Andhra Pradesh Rural Livelihoods Program (APRLP). Information on agriculture and livestock issues is provided to the farmers through the VASAT website. A 4,200-member federation of microcredit societies managed by rural women operates this hub which caters to about 15,000 people. Multi-disciplinary experts from the VASAT coalition provide timely information.

“With the experts providing us information through VASAT, we are confident that we can minimize the ill effects of drought,” says Ms. Sushma, Facilitator, Addakal. About 1,000 villagers have so far accessed the localized training module on Coping with Drought.

Says Sharadamma, a woman-farmer from Moosapeta, “I have learnt that droughts are here to stay. And that we need to face it whether we like it or not. But relevant information can make a big difference in coping with droughts.”

The situation is not much different in the semi-arid regions of West and Central Africa where VASAT is also active. A VASAT pilot hub in Niamey, Niger is partnering with local federation of farmers operating a solar-powered, low frequency community FM radio station. Radio Kahé caters to 4,000 villagers in a 20 kilometer radius. As the village chief of Gabi puts it: “Everybody is doing agriculture nowadays and it is the starting point for wealth.”

VASAT's blends top-down approaches to development commu­nication with a bottom-up approach that stresses the need for improved communication in rural areas. The advantages of this approach were visible in fishing hamlets struck by the recent tsunami: village communities used local communication channels to alert people about adverse weather, thereby helping save lives. Local NGOs have approached VASAT partners for help in the form of timely information and technical support to rebuild livelihoods in tsunami-affected areas.