Impact of temperature humidity index-based climate services for Murrah buffaloes of India on operational decision-making and economic outcome of the farm

Abstract

Climate change is likely to affect both the productive and reproductive functions of Murrah buffaloes, the major milch breed of India. Hence, in the present study, weekly modules of Temperature Humidity Index (THI) based climate services were prepared and disseminated to the farmers of experimental villages of Haryana, a state of North-Western part of India through either WhatsApp, Text SMS, and Mobile Application. Difference-in-Difference (DiD), a quasi-experimental research design was used to study the impact of climate services on operational decision-making as well as the economic outcome of the farm. The findings of the study revealed that the climate services had a positive effect on the number of farmers adopting the practices like use of oil cakes, minerals, and feed additives in the animal diet. Treatment effect was found to be significant on quantity of oilcake (0.39, 0.45 and 0.51 kg/animal/day); concentrates during both summer (0.48, 0.56, 0.59 kg/animal/day) and in winter (0.35, 0.40 and 0.42 kg/animal/day); and mineral mixture (9.47, 12.34 and 13.08 gm/animal/day) in Text SMS, WhatsApp and MobileApp group, respectively. The treatment effect of climate services on economic outcome indicators such as summer milk yield was also found to be significant (0.38, 0.44, and 0.50 L/animal) from Text SMS, WhatsApp, and MobileApp, respectively. Overall, the benefit-to-cost ratio of climate services was found to be 1:1.8. Hence, the exclusive climate services developed for Murrah buffalo farmers were found to be an effective adaptive mechanism for helping vulnerable dairy farming to adapt to the climate of today and of the future.

Keywords

• Climate change
• Climate services
• Weather
• Impact
• THI
• Murrah buffalo