Better weather forecasting could help Africa

Wednesday, 27 April 2005 12:00 AM

Improvements in weather forecasting could be used to predict when Africa is most likely to need humanitarian aid.

And, they could also be used to enable farmers to reassess their growing patterns in the face of climate change.

Delegates at the Royal Society's two-day international meeting 'Food Crops in a Changing Climate' said believe that weather data has so far been underutilised.

Dr Menghestab Haile, of the UN World Food Programme, said: "Current understanding of seasonal forecasting and weather monitoring in Africa can now reliably tell us whether annual crops are likely to fail before it happens.

"Tragically, networks for making decisions about how to minimise the negative impacts of weather-induced food shortages are not taking advantage of this valuable information."

He added that: "Predictions of probable crop failure would allow the delivery of timely humanitarian aid before a crisis has arisen. This is most important in allowing farmers to retain their assets in a bad year and leads to a more sustainable long-term approach."

Africa is consistently predicted to be among the worst hit areas across a range of future climate change scenarios and data presented at the conference suggests that some damaging meteorological trends are already occurring.

Dr James Verdin of the US Geological Survey famine early warning system explained: "Our monitoring of the weather in East Africa, particularly Ethiopia, shows a steep decline in levels of rainfall in the first part of the growing season over the last ten years.

"We have also noted increasing surface temperatures in the neighbouring Indian Ocean which appear to be associated with this drop in rainfall."

"If these trends continue farmers wanting to grow crops successfully in these regions will need to consider shifting from growing increasingly vulnerable long-cycle crops such as maize, to growing short-cycle crops such as barley."

And he called for the speedy deployment of agricultural programmes to facilitate the switch in production.

Additionally Dr Verdin stressed the need for African scientists to take control of the monitoring of climate change.

"At present they have the knowledge and, more importantly, local expertise to carry out the work, but are lacking the technology required," he explained.

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