Week 3: What are the links between agricultural production and weather?

Archived English Discussions Agriculture and Climate Change
#13

Hi @wengo, what about the sources like meteorological agencies in the country? Here in Tanzania we have Tanzania Meteorological Agency (TMA) which provide the weather information for free to the medias to help them disseminate. The Meteorological Agencies have these weather reports, like 10 days forecasts, 30 days forecasts or seasonal forecasts.

It is good to use a reliable source because as you say the weather information is very sensitive. You have to use the source that can be accounted for in case of any misinformation.

#14

Hello Kassim,
Welcome and thank you for sharing info on the technology for telling about weather. Hope this has benefited the people. I have enjoyed the Swahili piece though my Swahili is not strong, i have enjoyed listening!!
Hi Busi, thank you also for the update on our contributions to the discussion. And my other colleagues i am happy to read from you after contributing to week 3 of our discussion!

After hearing some piece, below is my contribution.

  1. What are farmers telling you about weather forecasts and their reliability?
    • Actually, the few farmers I have interacted with and other sections of people said when they hear weather forecasts on Radio and when some watch weather forecasts presented on TV, they cannot rely on it wholesomely saying such information is just to guess the situation or weather for a particular day.

• I also heard one man who said that us journalists tell them that it will rain tomorrow and it does not rain! That at times media stations highlight that it will rain in a certain place but instead it rains elsewhere! So it was as if they somehow do not fully trust such information.

  1. How have you, as broadcaster, used (or not) weather reports in your broadcasts?

As a Broadcaster I have done the following:-
• I have tried to translate especially the Seasonal outlook information given by the Uganda National Meteorological Authority to several Radio stations. The seasonal outlook information is given every after three months in a year to depict the general outlook over the various regions of Uganda. This gives information when the rain is expected, what farmers should do and what local authorities should put in place to help the communities deal with eventualities or disasters and other changes. For example; if it is a dry season and animals are lacking fodder or grass to eat or water to drink, the seasonal information is given to the farmers and they are told to be keeping hay and silage which is made out of fodder or maize stalks. They are told to use take the advantage of rains and keep feed for their animals. They are taught how to keep it and when it is very dry, that is when they can use it to feed their animals. However, when there are sudden changes before the three months elapse, new information is given by the meteorological authority for update.

• We keep on updating the public and the only good thing with this; the information is translated into local languages that are best understood by the majority.

• I also engage some experts in this area to talk in the local language best understood so that when people hear an expert explaining, they can trust the information and act accordingly.

  1. Do you use more traditional weather prediction methods (rainmakers etc.) and if so, how have
    you incorporated those into your broadcasts? Give us examples.

I do not ignore the local predictions especially by the people themselves. They even try to explain the direction that the rain comes from for a certain area or geographical location. But when they say things have changed now since the rains no-longer come from the same direction, that it can (rain) form from another direction and then it moves to our side then it pours (raining). This interests me to catch and highlight in the context of climate change or weather. Also, I do not rely so much on the daily forecasts given for fear of being misquoted since some people said journalists tell things that are not true about weather. What I do at times, I say it might rain today according to meteorology but due to changes we experience, it might not rain. That is how i try seasonal predictions.

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#15

Hi Kassim, We do have Meteorological Department here in Kenya. The challenge is being in a big Company that has more than 10 stations, everything is systematic. We have other stations that do have a software that tap weather updates. Being a younger station, am still waiting for the installation. Thanks

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#16

Hello everyone

In as much most of you have mentioned that you give weather forecast in your programs, we must also remember that if for any reason a farmer is not listening too your program at the time, they might miss the weather predictions.

Have you had time to check out the link Kassim shared? I find it interesting that it doesn’t matter what time of day, if farmers beep the number advertised for weather, they get a call back with recorder weather information. We all know the importance of weather in farming.

Check out the link and share your comments.

#17

Hello Kassim,
Welcome and thank you for sharing info on the technology for telling about weather. Hope this has benefited the people. I have enjoyed the Swahili piece though my Swahili is not strong, i have enjoyed listening!!
Hi Busi, thank you also for the update on our contributions to the discussion. And my other colleagues i am happy to read from you after contributing to week 3 of our discussion!

After hearing some piece, below is my contribution.

  1. What are farmers telling you about weather forecasts and their reliability?
    • Actually, the few farmers I have interacted with and other sections of people said when they hear weather forecasts on Radio and when some watch weather forecasts presented on TV, they cannot rely on it wholesomely saying such information is just to guess the situation or weather for a particular day.

• I also heard one man who said that us journalists tell them that it will rain tomorrow and it does not rain! That at times media stations highlight that it will rain in a certain place but instead it rains elsewhere! So it was as if they somehow do not fully trust such information.

  1. How have you, as broadcaster, used (or not) weather reports in your broadcasts?

As a Broadcaster I have done the following:-
• I have tried to translate especially the Seasonal outlook information given by the Uganda National Meteorological Authority to several Radio stations. The seasonal outlook information is given every after three months in a year to depict the general outlook over the various regions of Uganda. This gives information when the rain is expected, what farmers should do and what local authorities should put in place to help the communities deal with eventualities or disasters and other changes. For example; if it is a dry season and animals are lacking fodder or grass to eat or water to drink, the seasonal information is given to the farmers and they are told to be keeping hay and silage which is made out of fodder or maize stalks. They are told to use take the advantage of rains and keep feed for their animals. They are taught how to keep it and when it is very dry, that is when they can use it to feed their animals. However, when there are sudden changes before the three months elapse, new information is given by the meteorological authority for update.

• We keep on updating the public and the only good thing with this; the information is translated into local languages that are best understood by the majority.

• I also engage some experts in this area to talk in the local language best understood so that when people hear an expert explaining, they can trust the information and act accordingly.

  1. Do you use more traditional weather prediction methods (rainmakers etc.) and if so, how have
    you incorporated those into your broadcasts? Give us examples.

I do not ignore the local predictions especially by the people themselves. They even try to explain the direction that the rain comes from for a certain area or geographical location. But when they say things have changed now since the rains no-longer come from the same direction, that it can (rain) form from another direction and then it moves to our side then it pours (raining). This interests me to catch and highlight in the context of climate change or weather. Also, I do not rely so much on the daily forecasts given for fear of being misquoted since some people said journalists tell things that are not true about weather. What I do at times, I say it might rain today according to meteorology but due to changes we experience, it might not rain. That is how i try seasonal predictions.

#18

Dear Busi.

As earlier said, i have listened to the pieces that Kassim mentioned about in the link that he gave. Such technology is also being piloted here in the cattle corridor of Uganda which stretches from South Western part of Uganda up to South Sudan if i may say. It is indeed a long dry stretch where you find cattle keepers, herders, transhumants (cattle and cattle keepers movements), farmers etc. Many people have cattle a long the corridor, but they face a lot of challenges since it is a semi-arid long stretch. So some cattle keepers and the local government officials in the departments of production, agriculture have been provided with hand-held devices (phones) on which they get daily weather information from the weather stations which information is also given to the farmers. Then the local government officials from the districts where the project is being piloted use the local radio stations to inform the people/cattle keepers. This has helped a lot and the cattle keepers no-longer lose their animals as it was before. This is because the info given is timely and yet it provides them with the skills on how to go about dry spells.

#19

  1. Generally, farmers are gradually becoming familiar with weather updates on our radio programmes. However, some of them still do not trust the predictions especially when the forecasts give out general information and it does not rain in their area. In spite of that, they have no alternative than to rely on the radio information as other farmers experience the what they hear and are beginning to share with their peers on the radio programmes.

  2. As broadcasters we have created special slots for weather updates on our news and agricultural programme in both English and the local language (Dagbani), most farmers are beginning to rely on these information to plan for the season.

  3. Her in the north of Ghana, we no longer use traditional weather predictions to disseminate weather information to farmers as these systems are diminishing due to global warming and climate change factors.

#20

In Nigeria, it must be clearly stated that Community Radio Stations that serve farmers and settlement communities are still at infancy stages of development. After several years of advocacy and discussion the Nigerian Government approved the licensing of Community Radio and we came very close to talking with the farmers. Hitherto, whatever information Nigerian farmers receive comes mainly from state owned and private commercial radio stations. Some of these stations honestly have dedicated contents for farmers and farming communities. Even before the issues of climate change became very critical and took center stage in global discussions, information that can help farmers like use of improved seeds, weather forecast, information about availability of synthetic fertilizers and how farmers can access the fertilizer, how to prepare farmlands and even generate natural and climate friendly fertilizers etc. were given out on available state and private commercial radio stations.
The major issue this week is:
• What are farmers telling broadcasters about weather forecasts and their reliability? Before now the Nigerian Meteorological Services NIMET has been very active in supplying weather information to the entire nation on regular basis across the Aviation, Agriculture, Broadcasting, etc. sectors but nobody has done anything extra to ensure that farmers really get the weather related information for their farming practice. From my experience, the farmers are not telling the Broadcasters much about weather forecasts and their reliability. This is because the weather forecast information is given out to radio-listening public generally. No serious effort has been made especially in Nigeria to direct these weather messages to the farmers in a way they can understand it and apply them to their farming businesses. Farmers are not telling me much about weather forecasts, so they also hardly talk about reliability of the forecasts not because the information is not there or reliable but because they do not understand what was given to them.
• How have you, as broadcaster, used (or not) weather reports in your broadcasts? I have used weather reports in my broadcasts regularly as they are received from Nigeria Meteorological service NIMET.
• Do you use more traditional weather prediction methods (rainmakers etc.) and if so, how have
you incorporated those into your broadcasts? Give us examples. I have not used any traditional weather prediction methods in my broadcasts. What I have used is the conventional weather forecasts system provided by the national meteorological services department.

#21

Hi @Kassim

Thanks a lot for this brilliant contribution. I am learning a lot from it. Your experience taught me two things, which seem very interesting. The first is the way you combine mobile phone and radio, but not without previously collecting and producing information.

The second point concerns the way you adapt weather information so that farmers can access it. They need empirical data more than figures, which don’t mean anything to them.

At the same time, this means that as far as radios are concerned, it is not enough to collect weather information, even though it is available to broadcast if we truly want to have a real impact. Radio broadcasters must rewrite the collected information.

So, my question is the following: how can we develop skills within our radio stations?

Inoussa

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#22

I wish to appreciate the contribution submitted by Kassim and IMaiga, True radios may not have the capacity to collect accurate weather data. But if online information is used well farmers can get the right information. for instance if you visit this site http://www.yr.no/ you will be able to search for the area of your choice and get the right weather information. You can download and use the Radio to update the farmers or use the frontlineSMS platform to reach out to farmers. this is the way we use online information to update farmers in Nakaseke Community Radio-Uganda.

1 Like
#23

This is great, I like the fact that broadcasters provide relevant weather information to the farming audience.

It is also a good practice to reinforce your broadcast messages through other means of technology. I like @IMaiga’ s comment on combining mobile phone with technology with not without collecting and producing information. @krizo mentions that in Nigeria farmers mostly get information from state owned stations but I believe even the new community stations can now be able to use this method to reach the farming communities. It is a known fact that people might miss certain information on radio and might depend on repeats if any. When messages are reinforced through mobile technology, one can be sure that they can reach more people. @Peter_Balaba also mentions frontlineSMS which is another way of sending bulk messages.

I believe if broadcasters can use whatever means available to provide information, they will certainly make a mark. Getting feedback from farmers is also crucial.

#24

Hi @smawerere,

Thank you for your good contribution on this. Recently I attended a learning event organized by WMO (World Meteorological Organization. One of point came out strongly and that is the predictability of weather. There is no forecast that is 100% sure that the weather will be like so even with the satellite weather system there is a degree of it to change. It is well known that weather forecasts are probabilities. It may or it may not rain, the point is there is a high chance of raining.

The question raised during the event was, how can we deal with the probabilities? How can we make people/ service users understand that all the forecasts are probabilities? At the same time make them understand the importance of these predictions and how they can better use to make their day to day decisions. Keeping in mind that there is a chance of things to change.

#25

Dear @kassim we need not to give up giving updates to our farmers just because weather forecast are predictions. It is our mandate to read different predictions and time to time inform the farmers as the weather changes. I always visit http://www.yr.no for any weather changes.

1 Like
#26

Hi @IMaiga,

Thank you for your good question. Personally I think broadcasters/journalist are intermediary of information. Here I mean that, you take information from the source i.e. Weather reports, online services etc then you process it to something that will benefit your audience. Here is the role played by the journalist in Beep-4-weather service, Rotilinde (broadcaster/journalist) used to gather Weather Forecasts from different sources. We used different sources so as to improve the predictability of the forecast. So Rotilinde would use online services such as Weather Channel, Toto Agriculture and compare the forecasts from all and information provided by Tanzania Meteorological Agency (TMA) to come up with a forecast that farmers can understand. In both of these reports as you can see you will find that they are presented in scientific format. So Rotilinde would have to translate them into something that farmers can understand. For example, instead of saying 32 degrees of centigrate, she would say it will be very hot in this region. Or instead of 11 mm of Rain, she would say you will experience shower in this region.

After having this piece done, then Rotilinde (broadcaster/journalist), will do an interview with an expert to advice farmers about this forecast. What does this forecast mean to farming activities. Then she would put together and edit the whole content and produce a three minutes audio piece which is a complete weather information suitable for her audience in this case farmers. We also used to share this audio piece with the radio stations, so that they can use them in their farmers programs.

So @IMaiga I think you have all the skills needed i.e. Broadcasting Skills as well as Journalism. You have sources for the information too, there is a lot of online tools there but for accountability I think it is better to involve the local sources.

Kassim Sheghembe

#27

Hi @Peter_Balaba,

I agree with you that we should not give up giving weather updates just because they are predictions. In all areas of our lives we make decisions based on predictions and sometimes we are wrong and that is okay. What I am suggesting here is to find a way to make our audience understand this. If not they will lose trust with the information provided by the radio. It will harm the TRUST WORTHINESS of our medias.

We need to find a way to talk about this, so that our audiences are comfortable when it does not rain in the area even though it was Forecasted to rain.

#28

Dear All,

About the the weather forecast farmers say they are very keen now to know but also reveal it is not 100% depended on.They further say that at times meteorologists predict the best the worst come, when they promise the worst nothing happens.

However they say they are happy because Uganda National Meteorology Authority is reaching out to them with messages in local languages and the farmers in landslide prone areas like Bududa in Eastern Uganda say they can use the information to relocate with their livestock ahead of time.
They have also been able to use the drainage system to manage soil erosion and practicing water harvesting.

Yes I do use weather reports regularly if not in my broadcasts, I am in constant touch with Uganda National Meteorology Authority who are always updating me on weather reports that I broadcast in our daily News Hour Program. I also host the weather experts int the program or visit their offices for the radio interviews on weather. In last night’s program for example I interviewed the Executive Director Uganda National Meteorology Authority Mr. Festus Luboyera about the current onset of the rains. He said the country is going to received near to normal rains of slightly over 70% which he explained is good news for the farmers.
He calls upon the farmers to start preparing their inputs, and plant long maturing crops because the rain is going to last three months. I am next week programming to visit Uganda National Farmers Federation for a similar interview.

I have not used traditional weather predictions in my program yet not even the rain makers although I hear about them. I used to witness light showers during the dry season in the mountains of Mbale and I was told that farmers were hiring rain makers to release rain to water their onions, tomatoes and cabbages. It still exits up to now but I have scientific evidence. But when I get closer to one in future I will speak to him or her.

#29

Hi everyone, in Africa weather is a major pillar that holds agricultural production. The weather determines so many factors such as :

  1. Onset of farming season
  2. Type of crop to plant
  3. Type of farming practice and methods
  4. Type of implements used
  5. Onset of harvest and harvesting techniques
  6. Storage periods and techniques
  7. When to market produce and price levels
    In modern times, farmers need accurate weather information in order to improve farming.
    Many farmers in my area have mix feelings on the reliability of weather information. I then the past, the only source of weather information accessible to farmers was weather reports by the Ghana Meteorological Agency on daily news broadcast on National television and radio. However, the advancement of technology especially telecommunications has really been able to make farmers have access to weather information.
    Many farmers didn’t see weather reports from National Meteorological Agency as reliable.
    Recently GiZ and it’s partner through the Climate Change project made available real-time area specific weather information to farmers through mobile phone and many of them in surveys rely on this.
    As a broadcaster, with insight from FRI, weather information is a mandatory part of my farmer program.
    I broadcast weekly weather information to farmers and even further show how they can use mobile phones to access the information on their own.
    These information is translated into the local language and the instructions for access on mobile phones also translated into the local language for better understanding.
    Of course modernization don’t really mean that there are no indigenous methods of predicting the weather.
    And so I incorporate these knowledge in giving weather information. The best way is by soliciting from experienced farmers some of these methods and sorting the most reliable ones for use.
    Example: cloud and wind movements
#30

Honestly farmers in Malawi and in our community in particular have lost trust in weather forecasts. Years ago in the country when climate was normal farmers used to have what we call the first rains which were also planting rains. But now days we no longer have such rains everybody plants whenever he feels like so or if satisfied with the amount of rains which is happening in intervals like once a month or in three weeks so you would find those who planted early harvesting or those who planted late harvesting according to the rain fall pattern of that particular year.
I have used weather reports in my programs especially rainy season of 2014/2015 where we used to have a lot of floods.
I haven’t used traditional forecast but currently we are planning to start incorporating them because farmers in our community think these are very effective and accurate as compared to science. technology.

#31

Thanks for the information. I will follow up with the persons in charge. Thank again.

#32