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Project Leader	Dr. H. MEINKE DPI-APSRU, P.O. Box 102 Toowoomba, QLD 4350 AUSTRALIA Tel: +61-7-4688-1378 Fax: +61-7-4688-1193 Email: holger.meinke@dpi.qld.gov.au
Funding	US$ 85,000
Participating countries	Participants from the following countries were funded: Australia, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, and USA. NOAA-OGP contributed additional funds for a workshop. Activities linked closely with partner projects (e.g. ATI, training activity funded by Packard Foundation and conducted by IRI and AIACC activities in South America). The RES AGRICOLA network ensures that outcomes from all these projects are immediately available to the partner projects.

Brief introduction and background
This project builds on previous work in India and Pakistan (APN 2000-17), which has established a network of teams with capacity to apply agricultural systems modelling to explore and evaluate options for managing climatic risk. Building on that foundation, the current project aims to demonstrate and deliver benefits from climate forecast information for agricultural decision makers, and plot a course for large-scale, sustained operational support of seasonal climate prediction within the target countries (India, Indonesia and Pakistan). This CLIMAG project brings together scientists from key research organisations of the participating developing countries, Australia and the USA.

Outline of activities conducted
Each country node conducted specific research and communication activities as agreed to at the Bangkok team meeting (May 02). Other activities included: a project visit to India by Mr deVoil to conducted workshops at project sites in Bangalore and Tamil Nadu; participation of project staff at the Institute on Climate Variability and Food Security (ATI); a 2-week systems analysis and modelling workshop held in Australia with participants from Pakistan, India, Indonesia and Argentina; a visit by Mr Shah, Secretary of Agriculture, Pakistan to Queensland to establish formal working relationships; a visit by Dr Hansen to TNAU; presentation of an invited paper by Dr Meinke at a WMO/FAO workshop on vulnerability; a project visit by Dr Kumar to IRI.

Outcomes and products
2002 has been a rewarding, but also a challenging year for project staff due to the further deterioration of the international security situation leading to travel restrictions. All major milestones were achieved and the team made significant progress in relation to training staff, interacting with the farming community and progressing climate and systems science. Space limitations only allow us to sketch some of the highlights. In addition to some overarching outcomes across all nodes, node-specific outcomes were:
1) India
TNAU node - Dr Selvaraju and his group continued work on the validation of APSIM for relevant crops and crop systems. They interacted with individual farmers and farmer groups and conducted a survey with 79 farmers to develop a whole farm economic framework. Cognisant of a developing El Nino, the group conducted pre-season community impact workshops (May/June), where they presented model results to farmers. Based on these discussions many farmers changed from growing cotton in June to early sorghum, considerably reducing production risks and increasing their cash flow. The 20% of farmers, who took the risk and planted cotton, had to abandon their crops by August, losing all their input costs.

IIS node - Progress was facilitated by Mr deVoil's project visit and by Dr S. Sridhara's (Ass. Prof. Agronomy) attendance at the Australian training workshop. In the region peanut is the major crop, with pigeonpea the main intercrop. Current prices are such that profit from pigeonpea is higher. Hence farmers are considering changing to a different cropping system with pigeonpea as the main crop. The APSIM-Pigeonpea model performed well allowing us to simulate the interannual variation of pigeonpea for the Pavgada region relative to peanuts. Simulation results are currently being discussed with farmer groups in the district in order to assess viable, alternative cropping options.
2) Indonesia
Dr Ir. Rizaldi Boer and his research team had two specific objectives for their first project year: (i) to document existing research activities relating to better understanding of rice-base farming system through interaction with stakeholders, and (ii) to explore the use of probability forecasting system in agriculture decision-making. Both objectives have been achieved and documented.
3) Pakistan
Discussions with farmer groups have enabled us to simulate the existing and possible alternative cropping systems. Dr. Gill arranged presentations explaining risk management concepts based on simulation results to farmers, policy makers, crop scientists and extension workers. Project scientists visited farmers and held discussions about climate and the possibilities of a mungbean-wheat double cropping approach, as suggested by the model. Farmers are sceptical about the viability of such a double cropping system, but some farmers are now conducting small, on-farm trials based on simulation output. Simulations to answer other questions posed by farmers have been conducted and are currently being prepared for further discussions with farmer groups.

Future directions and follow-up work
During year two (2003/2004) our activities will concentrate on:

• Climate data inventory, compilation, quality control, formatting (all locations);
• Recommendations for future climate prediction research and products;
• Generation and evaluation of GCM-based hind casts downscaled to project sites;
• Tools for linking dynamic climate prediction with agricultural simulation;
• Description of relevant institutions and policy environment for each country; and
• Intensified scientist/farmer discussion via simulation-aided discussion support.