TECHNICAL Director of the Institute for Inter-American Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) Dr. Muhammad Ibrahim has stressed the need for accurate, short and long-term weather forecasts to be provided to the Region’s farmers in a timely manner.He said that this service was becoming  more and more critical for the farmers since the traditional planting seasons are shifting.

He said: “There is a lot of noise sometimes about farmers knowing when to plant but the climate is changing. Things are changing, local grassroots  knowledge on the seasons  is becoming rapidly outdated.”

The IICA expert, who is Guyanese-born, was speaking on the topic: ‘Sustainable Development of Family Farming and Climate Change in the Caribbean: Challenges and Opportunities’.

He referred to the current situation in  Central America where farmers planted beans in May with the expectation of rains but since then their crops are being devastated by a long dry season because of the El Nino effect.

He said the accurate and understandable weather data was necessary for building resilience in the regional agricultural sector.

He defined resilience as  the capacity of a system to experience shocks, while retaining  essentially the same functions, structure, feedbacks and therefore identity.

“It  is not only shocks but also stress; stress is something that is gradually coming; that you can see is going to occur. Shock is like a hurricane that comes suddenly,” Dr Ibrahim said, adding:

“Farmers need a lot of quality information, in terms of weather forecasts; they need information on when there is going to be drought conditions;  how long will it last; when to plant;  the planting season can be very important

“I don’t think the farmers are having precise information on this, and if they are getting the information, they are getting it too late.”

In addition, he noted that family agriculture has to be able to adapt to threats and to  envisioning an ideal future and this is where  there is need for better forecasting and prediction  of what the weather is going to be.

In that light, he noted that: “This  information has to be public goods. We  need to develop a good system of sharing information  and getting information  downscale.”

He added that most of the weather information given is  coarse-grain information – that is, it is too broad.

He said: “You find people presenting data on climate change  and weather and they show you the whole red of the Caribbean Region; but you want more fine-grain analysis, you want more precise information.”
CLIMATE-SMART
He said that the challenge was to simplify the  long and short-term weather data to get the users to understand and to use them for climate-smart agriculture.

He pointed out also that “it is not only adjusting the dates for planting  but also deciding  what varieties to plant. You  need more early maturing varieties because the next  rainy season could be short.”

The IICA  training  programme   on   Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM)  and adaptation of family farming to climate change was held in Guyana  for   regional  agricultural  and land-use officials  last week.

By Clifford Stanley