Why do African and Asian farmers need climate services? Asking them all one question: how does climate change impact your livelihoods? Your Ability to maintain a decent level of living and provide for yourself and your families? What I’ve heard from farmer testimonies and focus group discussions is that Farmers are already adapting . Faced with a more erratic climate, across Africa farmers are already devising innovative strategies and deploying tremendous efforts to cope such as walking longer miles to look for arable land and organizing community solidarity safety nets-akin to local insurance schemes, often also forfeiting meager household assets when shock is too great to cope with. However, there is a point where local capacities to cope fall short, and a little push is needed to get them back on their feet. One of the ways in which I’ve found that we can effectively give this little push from the outside is through advance information on atmospheric and weather conditions and the state of the climate- to enable them to anticipate climate-related changes and hazards coming their way. Learn more:ccafs.cgiar.org

1. Climate Services: Empowering Farmers
to Confront Climate Risks
Lessons from Africa & South Asia
Dr. Arame Tall
Climate Services- Scientist, Champion
a.tall@cgiar.org

2. 2 • 3/21/11
The Big Picture
• +2° future
• 9 billion people
by 2050
⇒ The Imperative
of Adaptation
What do we Adapt to?

3. Projections of precipitation change at the end of the 21st century
3 • 3/21/11
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/
publications_and_data_figures_and_tables.shtml

4. 4 • 3/21/11
Uncertainty
Remains Large
West Africa
30
20
Rainfall Change (%)
10
0
−10
−20
−30
1950 1975 2000 2025 2050 2075
Year
East Africa “A global perspective on
African climate” in Climatic
CC > More erraticity, exacerbation
30
Change [Giannini, Biasutti,
of current climate variability
20 Held and Sobel]
nfall Change (%)
10
0

5. 5 • 3/21/11
How do we support
Adaptation under
Uncertainty?
• One solution: Prepare for the Unknown
• Improve Decision-Making under
Uncertainty
• Equip farmers and policy makers with climate information, early
warnings and forecast to guide, inform and support their decision-
making under uncertainty
• Strengthen preparedness at timescales of the week, season to
year

6. 6 • 3/21/11
What do we mean by
Climate Services for Farmers?
Climate
information
services build
resilience by
empowering
farmers to
anticipate and
manage climate-
related hazards

7. Why Farmers are Not Getting
7
• 3/21/11
Salient Climate Services
We need to work together
to overcome these
tenacious challenges to
Limited Dialogue
with End Users Climate Service delivery
to identify Needs,
build Trust
Inappropriate
Communication
channels to Get
the Message out
to farmers
Poor Observation Limited capacity of
network / end-users to act of
received forecasts–
Limited capacity
of NHMS to Integration of CS
into development Credit:
Arame
Tall,
address needs support programs CCAFS

8. Challenges to Scaling up
8 • 3/21/11
Climate Service for Farmers
• Salience: tailoring content, scale, format, lead-time to farm
decision-making
• Legitimacy: giving farmers an effective voice in design and delivery
• Access: providing timely access to remote rural communities with
marginal infrastructure
• Equity: ensuring that women, poor, socially marginalized benefit
• Integration: climate services as part of a larger package of support

9. Successful CCAFS Experiences demonstrate that
Delivering Climate Information
Services for Farmers is Mission Possible
Lessons from Good Practice in Africa and South Asia
2009-2012

10. 1) Giving Famers a Voice
10 • 3/21/11
In design of Climate Services
• Spaces for iterative dialogue,
interaction and Co-production
of climate service
• PAR > key to involve
communities, capture innovation
⇒ Co-production of Climate
services
• Preliminary Results of Kaffrine
end project assessment
– Increase in access, from handful in
2011 to 100% by 2012
– Demonstrated Usefulness of
received information, for all
products across timescales
– Added value to traditional forecasts

11. 2) Leveraging ICTs to
11 • 3/21/11
‘reach the last mile’
• Place specificity of farmers’
climate information needs
• Salient communication
channels identified to reach
the most vulnerable:
ü SMS in local language
ü Forecast bulletin boards in
strategic outposts across village
ü Community relays/boundary
organizations (red cross
volunteers, World vision staff)
ü At village mosque
ü At water boreholes (women)
• Focus on Equity: reaching
women and other underserved
groups

12. 3) Innovative tools to Communicate
12• 3/21/11
forecasting uncertainty
- Didactic Games
The shorter the
time range,
the more
precise the
forecast
⇒
Bringing
forecasters
and
end-­‐users
to
work
together
to
put
climate
knowledge
in
the
hands
of
communities
at
risk
from
HMDs
Credit:
Red
Cross/
PetLab

13. Communicating Downscaled
13 • 3/21/11
Seasonal forecasts to farmers
> The PDF
Credit:
J.
Hansen,
CCAFS
Credit:
Dr.
Ousmane
Ndiaye,
ANACIM
Ousmane
Ndiaye,
ANACIM
Farmers
discussing
what
1mm
of
rain
means…

14. 14 • 3/21/11
….To Wote, Eastern Kenya:
Research into Use
Credit:
J.
Hansen,
IRI/CCAFS
KPC
Rao,
ICRISAT

15. 15 • 3/21/11
4) Seemless forecasting
• Suite of Seemless forecasting
products • Tailored to User needs
– Seasonal ü Content: hazards, scales
– Dekadal ü Timing: Alarm threshold
– 72h ü Message format
& language
– 48h
– 3h- nowcasting
⇒ Key to support farmers in managing
uncertainties inherent in climate forecasting
⇒ Confirmation of risk as season unfolds
WEATHER CLIMATE
HOURS DAYS WEEKS MONTHS YEARS DECADES …

16. 5) Promoting a coordinated
16 • 3/21/11
Framework for Climate
Services
Global Fig. 2: Outcome of
Identify users
pilot GFCS national
Regional • Each user has specific needs Workshops in Burkina,
• Map out sector-specific Niger and Mali (July-
climate service needs
National Sep. 2012)
User Feedback Elaborate climate service
• For Constant improvement • Pluri-disciplinary production
and tailoring of services to of agro-met advisory service,
farmer needs in collaboration with other
technical services
A Best practice
model of the Cycle
Diffuse largely of Climate Service
Production
16

17. 17 • 3/21/11 Everyone has a role to Play in
Linking Information to Action
Fig. 3: Different National Hydro-Meteorological Services
(NHMS)
Roles in the
Chain of Climate Production
of
hydro-­‐met
forecasts
Information
Production and NARS (Partners)
Communication Tailoring
of
received
climate
info
>
Production
of
Agro-­‐Met
Advisory
Communicators & Boundary Organizations:
- Media – Extension Services - Other community
relays (NGOs, CBOs, etc.)
Widespread
communication
of
climate
information
and
advisory
services
National level end-users
(rural development policy makers, seed and
fertilizer industry, private sector)
Final End-users
(farmers, pastoralists, at risk communities)
Credit:
Arame
Tall,
CCAFS

18. 18 • 3/21/11
CCAFS intent to Scale up
Climate Services for Farmers
1. Identifying Good practice
2. Upscaling Climate Services to millions of farmers
– Incentivizing Legal and Institutional Frameworks for Climate
Services at National level
– Leveraging strong partnerships between
NHMS, Agricultural research and extension
services to produce integrated agro-climate
advisories
– Role of boundary organizations and media for wide
communication
3. Minimum Standards for Assessing Livelihood
Impact - making the case for Climate Services

19. Reaching Farmers with
19 • 3/21/11
Climate Services at
Scale > Mission
Possible
• Examples surveyed by CCAFS prove that it
is today Mission Possible to reach millions of
farmers with salient and downscaled climate
information and advisory services relevant to
support their decision-making under an
uncertain climate.
• It is time to Scale Up this approach for many
other farmers to have access and benefit
from available climate information and
advisory services.
• The time is Right for Climate Services.
For more information, contact:
Arame Tall, a.tall@cgiar.org
Photo: Farmer in Ouelessebougou village, happy
beneficiary of Mali’s 30year old Agromet advisory
program. Credit: A. Tall