AGROSAVIA develops AGRORAC, a tool to help anticipate agroclimatic risk in crops

• AGRORAC integrates official IDEAM forecasts with soil, crop, and crop development-stage information to analyze agroclimatic risk at the local level and support decision-making by producers, technical advisors, and institutions.

 

Mosquera, Cundinamarca. August 12, 2026. A climate forecast announces that rainfall in the coming months will be below normal. For a farmer, that information is only the starting point. The real question is: how will this climate behavior affect my crop, in my municipality, and at the development stage it is currently in? Answering this question was the challenge that led to the creation of AGRORAC, a platform developed by Corporación colombiana de investigación agropecuaria (AGROSAVIA) to analyze agroclimatic risk in production systems and generate information to support decision-making in the field.

 The tool integrates official climate forecasts from IDEAM with information on the soil, water, and thermal requirements of each crop and its phenological stage, allowing more detailed identification of periods when threats from water deficits or excesses, or from temperatures that may affect production, could occur.

 

From National Forecasts to Risk Analysis for Each Crop

One of AGRORAC's main contributions is its ability to take climate information from a regional scale to the specific context where agricultural activities take place.

While IDEAM forecasts show the expected climate behavior across broad areas of the country, AGRORAC spatially disaggregates this information and analyzes it at the municipal level or even for a specific plot defined by the user. It then cross-references this information with soil characteristics, the crop, and its development stage to identify periods of greater exposure to agroclimatic risk.

In this way, the platform provides technical information that enables farmers, technical advisors, and institutions to assess different scenarios and determine the most appropriate management measures according to the conditions of each production system.

 

A Tool to Understand Risk Before Losses Occur

AGRORAC is part of the agroclimatic risk knowledge tools, one of the components of comprehensive disaster risk management. Its purpose is to characterize climate-related hazards, identify the periods when crops are most vulnerable, and analyze how these conditions could affect production. Based on this analysis, producers and institutions have the information needed to plan anticipatory actions and reduce risk.

Users can select the crop, area of interest, planting date, and soil characteristics. Based on this information, the platform generates maps and reports showing the critical periods of the production cycle and supporting the planning of activities such as irrigation scheduling, adjustment of planting calendars, or prioritization of management measures in response to climate variability.

 

Science Built on Knowledge of the Territory

Another distinguishing feature of AGRORAC is that the technical fact sheets supporting the platform were developed through a participatory process involving AGROSAVIA researchers, producers, technical advisors, and specialists across different production systems.

This combination of scientific information and local knowledge enables analyses to respond to the current conditions of each territory and reflect the specific characteristics of crops across the country's different regions.

Currently, AGRORAC includes 21 production configurations, including potato, plantain, cacao, avocado, sugarcane for panela production, common bean, maize, soybean, cashew, carrot, Tahiti lime, and different varieties of chili pepper, developed for several regions of Colombia. The platform will continue expanding its coverage as new agroclimatic fact sheets are developed and validated.

 

Free Access for Producers and Institutions

AGRORAC is freely available to producers, technical advisors, extension agents, researchers, industry associations, producer organizations, and public institutions.

The tool can be accessed through AGROSAVIA's web portal as follows: Products and Services → Technology Offering → Information Systems → AGRORAC.

Or click here to access AGRORAC.