PxD Weather Forecast Based Advisory

The IFAD-PxD weather product was motivated by farmer’s desire for granular and actionable weather forecasts. This project has been established to provide high-quality forecasts to farmers by creating customised “weather-aware” advisory. Weather forecasts increase farmer’s ability to choose the best production strategies as well as adapt to volatile climate conditions and extreme weather events.

Locally available forecasts typically have limited value due to low accuracy, short time horizons, inaccessible channels, and poor interpretability. With its expertise in blending behavioural economics, human-centred design, and A/B testing, PxD was well-prepared to close such gaps. Funding through IFAD allowed PxD to invest in weather forecasting product development.

PxD Pakistan has partnered with CFAN to acquire calibrated forecasts at a more granular grid size than have so far been available in Punjab. Weather forecaster CFAN is a global leader in weather and climate forecast tool development and is supplying forecasts and helping translate them into formats most useful for agronomists. CFAN was chosen for their leading meteorological expertise and experience in South Asia.

These forecasts will account for climatic parameters including rainfall, temperatures, humidity, wind speed, as well as extreme weather events like floods, droughts, hails, etc. The weather data here will be obtained at a granular geographical level; tehsil and eventually UC/village level.

These high-quality forecasts will be used to create a customised “weather-aware” advisory for farmers. PxD agronomists and external providers have generated a ‘menu’ of weather advisory structured around the crop cycle that includes pre-planting, planting, vegetative growth, reproductive growth and picking.

This information will be coupled with actionable recommendations to steer farmers towards climate-friendly practices that also reduce their costs (through better timing and usage of inputs), conserve nature (better water management) and ultimately boost yields and incomes for smallholder farmers. The project is currently in the pilot phase. This involves developing an effective product design, soliciting critical feedback from farmers, and evaluating what type, mode, or frequency is optimal. Large scale roll out is expected in 2022 to about 500K farmers in all 36 districts and about 144 tehsils of Punjab. To measure the impact of the new product, three treatment groups are in place: Flagship cotton advisory (Purpose: Control group for comparisons), Flagship and daily weather (Purpose: Identify impact of providing standalone weather forecasts), Custom weather advisory (Purpose: Identify impact of integrating weather into advisory).