The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) is a world leader in the analysis of climate change. Its cost-benefit evaluation of PICSA in Zambia evidences its effectiveness for agricultural systems and communities – but also the value of individual agency and local data ownership in decision-making and the power of relationships.
Long-term climatic analysis, which IDEMS contributes to the PICSA programme, underpins “a high potential for anticipating climate risks and thus improving food and nutrition security.” This direct social impact, which results from working with local data stewards, shows “that the initial investment needed to employ PICSA already becomes economically beneficial after one year with returns increasing in the future.”
Depending on the future climate scenario used to calculate specific returns on investment, PIK found that “each USD invested in PICSA generates between 3.6 and 3.8 USD in benefits. This suggests that employing PICSA is a highly cost-effective investment that constitutes an important variable in safeguarding farmers’ long-term livelihood.”
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Already, IDEMS’ role in unlocking the value of local, historical climate records – which many climate advisory services overlook – is clear. But the prioritisation of community experience and the individual agency of every farming household has further consequences.
Instead of only telling a farmer when to plant maize, PICSA helps the farmer to decide if and when to plant maize, whether to switch to other crops, varieties or livestock – or (if the next growing season could be disastrous) to consider other income generating activities altogether.
Designing PICSA to be participatory and user-centred in this way is also critical to its effectiveness, both in terms of economic cost-benefit, wider social impact (on health, gender, education, etc.) and long-term sustainability through local ownership. As the PIK study demonstrates, focusing only on the technical issues – without understanding them in a social context – would make PICSA just another temporary techno-fix in the long history of unsustainable digital agrifood solutions.