Climate Services Can Support African Farmers' Context-Specific Adaptation Needs at Scale

Hansen, J W and Vaughan, C and Kagabo, D M and Dinku, T and Carr, E R and Körner, J and Zougmore, R B (2019) Climate Services Can Support African Farmers' Context-Specific Adaptation Needs at Scale. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, 3 (21). pp. 1-16. ISSN 2571-581X

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Abstract

We consider the question of what is needed for climate services to support sub-Saharan African farmers' adaptation needs at the scale of the climate challenge. Consistent with an earlier assessment that mutually reinforcing supply-side and demand-side capacity constraints impede the development of effective climate services in Africa, our discussion of strategies for scaling up practices that meet farmers' needs, and opportunities to address long-standing obstacles, is organized around: (a) meeting farmers' climate information needs; (b) supporting access, understanding and use; and (c) co-production of services. A widespread gap between available information and farmers' needs is associated with entrenched seasonal forecast convention and obstacles to using observational data. Scalable innovations for producing more locally relevant historical and forecast climate information for farm decision-making are beginning to be adopted. Structured participatory communication processes help farmers relate complex climate information to their experience, and integrate it into their management decisions. Promising efforts to deliver rural climate services strategically combine communication channels that include participatory processes embedded in existing agricultural advisory systems, and innovations in interactive broadcast media. Efforts to engage farmers in co-production of climate services improve delivery to farmers and dialogue among stakeholders, but often with little impact on the usability of available information. We discuss challenges and options for capturing farmers' evolving demands, and aggregating and incorporating this information into iterative improvements to climate services at a national scale. We find evidence that key weaknesses in the supply and the demand sides of climate services continue to reinforce each other to impede progress toward meeting farmers' needs at scale across Africa. Six recommendations target these weaknesses: (1) change the way seasonal forecasts are produced and presented regionally and nationally, (2) use merged gridded data as a foundation for national climate information products, (3) remove barriers to using historical data as a public good, (4) mobilize those who work on the demand side of climate services as an effective community of practice, (5) collectively assess and improve tools and processes for communicating climate information with rural communities, and (6) build iterative co-production processes into national climate service frameworks.

Item Type:	Article
Divisions:	Research Program : West & Central Africa
CRP:	CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Climate Services Partnership, co-production, scaling, climate risk management, climate information, agricultural extension, national meteorological services, climate, sub-Saharan Africa, climate challenge, farm decisionmaking, climate information products, climate service frameworks, climate services in Africa, African Farmers, smallholder farmers, climate variability, agricultural climate services
Subjects:	Others > Climate Mitigation Others > Smallholder Farmers Others > Climate Change Others > Africa Others > Sub-Saharan Africa
Depositing User:	Mr Ramesh K
Date Deposited:	04 Jul 2019 09:12
Last Modified:	04 Jul 2019 09:12
URI:	http://oar.icrisat.org/id/eprint/11139
Official URL:	https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2019.00021
Projects:	UNSPECIFIED
Funders:	Climate Information Services Research Initiative (CISRI), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS)
Acknowledgement:	The authors gratefully acknowledge helpful insights and comments from Steve Zebiak, Madeleine Thomson, Rebecca McCoy, Alison Rose, and Richard Graham. This work was supported in part by the Climate Information Services Research Initiative (CISRI), made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). It was also supported in part by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), which is carried out with support from the CGIAR Trust Fund and through bilateral funding agreements (for details please visit https://ccafs.cgiar.org/donors). The paper draws significantly on lessons from agricultural climate service projects made possible by the generous support of the American people through by the Rwanda (Climate Services for Agriculture: Empowering Farmers to Manage Risk and Adapt to a Changing Climate in Rwanda) and Senegal (Climate Information Services to Increase Resilience and Productivity in Senegal) Missions of USAID. The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government, or CCAFS or its co-sponsoring or supporting organizations.
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