White Paper: Good Practices in Scaling Up Climate Services for Farmers
and Selected Case Studies
This white paper summarizes the lessons learnt from across cases, projects and research experiments in across Africa and South Asia effectively developing and providing climate information and advisory services for smallholder farmers. These projects have been selected as feature case studies for presentation and discussion, to be presented and discussed during the CCAFS-WMO-USAID-CSP international workshop “Scaling Up Climate Services for Farmers in Africa and South Asia,” to be held December 10-12 in Senegal.
Two main case studies reaching farmers at scale are featured: Integrated Agrometeorological Advisory Services (IAAS) in India (which recently announced in 2012 plans to scale up to 10-12 million farmers) and Mali’s Projet d’Assistance Agrometeorologique au Monde Rural (which has provided innovative services to farmers since 1982). CCAFS and partners have conducted in-depth assessments of the Mali and India cases, in order to provide evidence of climate services use and benefit at the village level, and capture insights about factors that have contributed to their uptake, impact and sustainability at scale.
In addition, a dozen examples of less mature climate advisory service pilot cases from across Africa and South Asia are featured, for farmers are featured, from across the four corners of Africa and South Asia, to provide a solid evidence base for workshop discussions and follow-up actions.
Each case evidences one particular aspect of good practice, and exemplifies what it takes to reach remote and vulnerable farmers with salient, usable and timely climate information and advisory services, as well as the challenges remaining on the road to rendering providing actionable climate services relevant for smallholder farmers. The postulate is that such climate information and advisory services can effectively support farmer decision-making and risk management under a changing climate, improve agricultural productivity, and increase farmer incomes. The time is right for climate services to be scaled up to reach many more farmers struggling with the vagaries of a changing climate in the face of increasing climate uncertainty across Africa and South Asia.
Two main case studies reaching farmers at scale are featured: Integrated Agrometeorological Advisory Services (IAAS) in India (which recently announced in 2012 plans to scale up to 10-12 million farmers) and Mali’s Projet d’Assistance Agrometeorologique au Monde Rural (which has provided innovative services to farmers since 1982). CCAFS and partners have conducted in-depth assessments of the Mali and India cases, in order to provide evidence of climate services use and benefit at the village level, and capture insights about factors that have contributed to their uptake, impact and sustainability at scale.
In addition, a dozen examples of less mature climate advisory service pilot cases from across Africa and South Asia are featured, for farmers are featured, from across the four corners of Africa and South Asia, to provide a solid evidence base for workshop discussions and follow-up actions.
Each case evidences one particular aspect of good practice, and exemplifies what it takes to reach remote and vulnerable farmers with salient, usable and timely climate information and advisory services, as well as the challenges remaining on the road to rendering providing actionable climate services relevant for smallholder farmers. The postulate is that such climate information and advisory services can effectively support farmer decision-making and risk management under a changing climate, improve agricultural productivity, and increase farmer incomes. The time is right for climate services to be scaled up to reach many more farmers struggling with the vagaries of a changing climate in the face of increasing climate uncertainty across Africa and South Asia.
| White Paper Good Practices in Scaling Up Climate Services for Farmers |