Weather Forecasting: An Incentive for Farmers

Let’s face it; everybody needs good weather to pursue their daily activities. However, while most professionals can make do with bad weather, the farmer cannot. If the weather is bad; no water, too much water, whatever, it can stop crops from growing. Therefore, farmers need to know when to plant and harvest crops. And weather is extremely important for the growing of food crops and vegetables, and the raising of livestock.

Weather forecasting has always been an important aspect of the life of farmers.  From time immemorial, farmers have interpreted weather conditions in order to prepare their lands, determine the type of crops to cultivate and what time to do so.  Those were times when the weather conditions were stable and predictions accurate; therefore, farming was pleasant and productive. 

In fact, at that time, the old man in the village could predict when it was going to rain and in the words of Charles Yorke of the Ghana Meteorological Agency (GMet), “the old man’s prediction was about 90 % accurate all of the time.”  But things have changed and farmers are now no longer at ease.  Now, the old man can no longer precisely predict weather signs to aid farmers in their activities.

Transformation in the weather including changes in the onset of the seasons, erratic rainfall, and increasing heat that are all climate change related events,  have rendered useless indigenous weather forecasting.  This state of affairs, which has negatively impacted on the activities and lives of ordinary farmers, has become a major source of concern for agricultural experts, scientists, economists, researchers and agro-businesses.  This is because of its implications for food security, nutritional status and the general well-being of the people.

In spite of these challenges, weather forecasting can still be done and information packaged and disseminated on timely basis to meet the needs of farmers and other institutions like the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority, Ghana Airport Company, and the Ghana Ports and Harbour Authority as well as the corporate bodies that work closely with them. They rely on the Ghana Meteorological Agency (GMet), for weather information to make vital decisions concerning their daily activities. 

The subject of identifying, packaging and providing practical and useable weather information to vulnerable groups like farmers, was the focus of discussions at a recent meeting in Accra of a multidisciplinary group of scientists, users of weather information including farmers and intermediaries from Ghana, and international experts. The June 5^th, 2014, meeting was organized by the Africa Climate Exchange (AfClix), CARE Ghana and GMet with the support of the Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies, the University of Reading and the UK based Natural Environment Research Council.

 

Mr. Yorke who talked about the current weather trends said “the long dry spells have become a headache for farmers, and when the rains come they are torrential and do not augur well for farmers and herders.”  He added, “the onset of the rainy season has changed, the amount of rainfall has changed and the rainy days now reduced from 25 days continues previously, to one to three days…” Mr. Yorke also explained that “the information GMet provides on the onset date of the rains, is meant for agricultural extension workers to advice farmers on the type of crops they should select for cultivation within that period.”

The essence of such information is that the various crops have differing water requirements, and may or may not do well depending on the amount of water they are exposed to and the timing of the rains.  For instance, “early millet,” has to be cultivated at a particular time to coincide with on set of the rains at a certain time, once that time expires, the crop will not do well. Some of the participants expressed concerned that the “early millet,” could become extinct, hence, the need for agricultural scientists to propagate varieties that are weather tolerant.

Mr. Yorke pointed out that the manner in which media houses announce weather forecasts makes the information irrelevant.  ‘Weather information,” he said, “is meant for a particular time, once the time elapses even for one hour, the information is no longer useful, since by that time, the weather condition predicted would have already manifested.”

Romanous Gyang of CARE Ghana Tamale office, elaborated on the organisation’s project in the East Mamprusi and Garu Tempane Districts of the Northern region. He noted that farmers in these districts have low capacities to adapt to climate change because of “lack of access to weather forecast information for agricultural planning, user unfriendliness of climate information, seasonal forecast that do not meet the short term information needs of farmers, weak climate information communication systems and mistrust of climate information sources.” He called for intensive nationwide public education on climate change. 

Mohammed Issifu of ESOKO an agricultural oriented firm, said the company has established a powerful technical platform that provides special services including weather information to farmers and prices of 56 agricultural products to traders among other groups of people.

Esoko in partnership with aWhere, Inc. has embarked upon an innovative scheme to provide weather related information to farmers. Known as Real-time, it is a platform that provides climate smart recommendations and alerts via innovative use of mobile phone technology (an SMS platform) to give farmers in rural communities real-time weather data in a move to increase their yields. This deal will enable small-scale farmers in Ghana to receive daily text messages with localized weather information on precipitation, temperature, wind speed, humidity, and growing degree days among others.

Benedictta Fosu Mensah of the Institute of Environment and Sanitation Studies, University of Ghana, briefed the meeting about the CLIM-WARN system, a project of UNEP, which is a UN-wide multi-hazard global early warning system for climate-related extreme weather events. The system, which is still in its formulating stage, will when completed, issue warnings to the most severely affected regions of the world - allowing sufficient time possibly between six months to ten years for these regions to respond to the situation. This is important because, the range of current climate-related early warning systems remains far removed from what is actually needed and what is technically feasible.

The meeting also discussed the relevance of early warning systems that can provide timely weather information for specific areas.  Generators of weather information were cautioned against the dangers of generalizing weather information meant for a particular area, as it tends not be applicable for another area and often results in mistrust of such information. 

Dr. Ros Cornforth of Rainwatch-AfClix said the programme is to be extended to Ghana this year, and the main trust will be to collaborate with GMet to generate and package accurate, usable early warning climate information to vulnerable communities and ordinary people. There are plans to further extend the programme to Burkina Faso, Nigeria and Sudan.

The Rainwatch-AfClix programme is currently operational in Senegal, Mali and Niger – where it is working with the government to understand how the rainfall pattern is evolving. Dr. Cornforth  hoped that the system generated will be relevant throughout the West African sub-region  and, in the long term, contribute to the design of robust multi-hazard early warning systems across the wider continent.

But even before this happens, the capacity of GMet and other organizations can be further enhanced to provide the much needed weather forecasts to assist farmers. This development is critical because according to K.K. Singh of the India Meteorological Department, weather and climate information plays a major role before and during the cropping season. In a paper on weather forecasting and agromet advisory services in India, he says, “if provided in advance, weather and climate information can be helpful in inspiring farmers to organize and activate their own resources in order to reap the benefits.”

Moreover, reliable and timely forecasting provides important and useful input for proper foresighted and informed planning, and for agro-policy development. Experts say that when climate information is blended with seasonal climate forecasts before the start for the cropping season, it enables the agricultural system to adapt to increased weather inconsistencies.  Furthermore, timely weather forecasting helps in the development of agro- based advisories thatare vital for famers to stabilize crop yields through management of agro-climatic resources and other inputs such as irrigation, fertilizers and pesticides.

The Director of IFAD’s Environment and Climate Division, Elwyn Grainger-Jones, believes that “more information means farmers can plan more effectively, optimizing their management in light of forecasted weather, and so reducing crop losses or increasing potential gains.” In a statement on IFAD’s new Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme (ASAP), aimed at helping smallholder farmers adapt to climate change, Dr. Grainger-Jones said information on weather can also be integrated into insurance systems for farmers. “This approach,” he explained “known as weather index insurance, provides a safety net in times of weather-related crop disasters.”

Explaining the importance of the early warning systems, Dr. Grainger-Jones said a system that operates over the course of days or weeks can help predict pest outbreaks and flood risks, and determine planting and harvest times. He cited situations in areas where production is often threatened by sudden-onset disasters such as flooding, and said “the development of an early warning system can give farmers those few days of extra preparation that can represent the difference between saving and losing their crops.”  

Currently, in addition to weather updates by GMet, some organizations are providing weather information to a few farming communities. But more of such localized services will be required as soon as possible to enable farmers plan their activities, undertake or withhold sowing, irrigate crops or not, know when to apply fertilizer or not, determine whether to start complete harvesting or to withhold it, arrange when to store and transport food crops, and work out how to protect their livestock. From the foregoing, one can conclude that weather forecasting is an incentive for farmers. 

(The blogger is also a correspondent on climate change, environment and science for the Business and Financial Times/The Public Agenda)