What is DiCRA
Data in Climate Resilient Agriculture (DiCRA) is a collaborative digital public good designed to mainstream data-driven decision-making for climate adaptation within the agriculture space. Launched in 2023, the platform provides open access to curated geospatial datasets that are validated through public sources to strengthen evidence-driven policy-making.
At its core, DiCRA addresses a critical gap in the agricultural ecosystem: global greenhouse gas emissions and climate change cause up to a twenty-five percent loss in income for smallholder farmers in India, yet many decision-makers lack a comprehensive understanding of these impacts.
Vision
The vision of DiCRA is to demystify climate resilience by providing high-resolution intelligence on over 40+ agricultural parameters. By leveraging pattern-detection algorithms and decadal time trends, the platform facilitates the customization of use cases such as spatial analytics and parameter interactions tailored to specific stakeholder needs.
Ultimately, DiCRA strives to shift agricultural programming toward long-term sustainability by providing both output- and outcome-level insights that protect livelihoods and aid policy-making and collaborative community efforts.
Background
The inception of DiCRA is rooted in UNDP's global mandate to accelerate climate adaptation and mitigation in alignment with the goals of the Paris Agreement. As a key partner of the Digital Public Goods Alliance, UNDP recognized an urgent need for technological frameworks that could provide vital data and analytics. This commitment led to the creation of DiCRA, intended as a tool to put actionable intelligence into the hands of farmers and policymakers, thereby boosting the resilience of livelihoods. The implementation of this project was realized through a partnership with mistEO, utilizing their expertise in geospatial insights and agricultural science to translate these high-level institutional commitments into a scalable platform.
Following the successful deployment of DiCRA 1.0, which demonstrated the platform's potential in localized contexts, the initiative entered a transformative phase of expansion. Recognizing the tool's impact on agricultural governance, NABARD — in partnership with mistEO — sought to lead and scale the platform to achieve pan-India coverage. This evolution involved integrating a broader range of stakeholders and developing multi-dimensional use cases to serve the diverse landscape of the country.