Mobile weather services for smallscale farmers

Weather Impact

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Abstract: Africa’s population is growing at an exceptional rate and its overall food demand is expected to double by 2050. This poses enormous challenges for the local agricultural sector,which consists to a large extent of small-scale farmers. These farmers depend mainly on rain-fed agriculture,and their crop production is very sensitive to weather variability and climate change. The question is how these farmers can prepare themselves to deal with the new reality,and whether modern weather services can help them. This paper presents case studies performed in various African countries where we currently provide weather services to thousands of small-scale farmers,through various communication channels,on a daily basis. Small-scale farmers can easily be reached by mobile phones such as ‘feature phones’. These basic phones also allow location to be determined and weather information to be downscaled.