
The bad news is that those forecasts, and other historical weather information farmers need to judge risk and make good decisions, still are not reaching most growers, in part because meteorological data in many African countries is available only at a cost.
Weather information “is an essential resource for adaptation (to climate change) and development,” said James W. Hansen, a researcher on climate change, agriculture and food security at the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and lead author of a new report on seasonal climate forecasting and agriculture in Africa.
But “as long as these (data) are seen as a revenue source for Met services rather than as a public good for development, the people who are most affected by climate change, climate variability and poverty won’t have much access to innovations,” he said in a telephone interview.
Growing climate variability is making life increasingly difficult for farmers throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Some areas, particularly in southern and eastern Africa, are seeing extended droughts and high temperatures that can make growing staples like maize a challenge. Other regions, including parts of West Africa, have struggled with extreme rainfall…
Students in Hai, Tanzania tending school crops in Hai, Kilimanjaro Region, Tanzania. Shot by Ron Rieckenberg, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license
No comments:
Post a Comment