By Giriraj Amarnath and Niranga Alahacoon
In the paddy fields around Nagollagama, in Sri Lanka’s Kurunegala District, the monsoon no longer behaves the way it used to. Rains that once arrived on a familiar calendar now come early, late, or not at all. For a farmer deciding when to sow, irrigate, hold back water, and fertilize that uncertainty is not an abstraction. It is the difference between a good year and a hopeless one.
These are genuinely hard decisions and until recently farmers were making them largely in the dark.
On June first, the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), in partnership with Sri Lanka’s Department of Agrarian Development (DAD), inaugurated an Agro-Climate Advisory Lab at the Nagollagama Agrarian Service Centre. A modest building, now home to an outsized idea — that a seasonal weather forecast, properly translated and delivered, can become a farmer’s most valuable input.
A five-year journey, not an overnight fix
The lab did not appear from nowhere. It is the visible result of a patient, five-year engagement.
In 2021, the first pilot reached 250 farmers, bundling climate-resilient seed, agro-climatic advisories and crop insurance. When these farmers met with climate-induced losses, insurance payouts cushioned the blow.
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