EXPLOITING The Agricultural POTENTIAL of Ghana USING Weather FORECAST

1. EXPLOITING The Agricultural POTENTIAL of Ghana USING Weather FORECAST ‘Report on The Weather Forecasting Project of UER’ By Emmanuel D. Eledi (Regional Director - UER)

2. Report On The Weather Forecasting Project Of Upper Eest Region Of Ghana Presentation Format • Introduction: Background Information on Programme • Implementation Method • Status of Implementation • The Way Forward

3. The Global Concern On Climate Change According to Prof. Richard Washington of Oxford University at a workshop in Nairobi, • Issues of Global concern are: • Understanding current climate variability • Climate prediction, that includes • Seasonal prediction • Global warming issues • He mentioned that: • Concentration of the project was focused on seasonal, weekly and daily weather forecasting to support farming decision making “The Issue of Seasonal prediction is most crucial to the farmer and Coping with Climate Change and Variability is vital and a Hot Topic for Strategic Research” - Prof. Washington

4. WORKSHOP PARTICIPANTS Exploiting The Agricultural Potential Using Climate Forecast Workshop Jan 12-23,2009 Wa, UWR

5. The Climate Issue Introduction • Large parts of Northern Ghana have semi-arid environment & have High variability of rainfall patterns • In Ghana, Seasonal climate outlook & weather forecasts are available from G-Met but difficult to interpret for farmers to use • The need arises to identify together on-farm climate sensitive systems for decision making by farmers • The program began with seasonal forecasts initially presented to MoFA from Florida to advise farmers on the periods to begin farming activities • Geographical locations of communities were taken for location specific weekly forecasting data to be developed and shared with farmers

6. WEATHER FORECASTING FOR SUSTAINABLE FARMING: THE EXPERIENCE IN UPPER EAST REGION OF GHANA • Opinion leaders of communities were provided daily forecasters and rain gauges for data collection and record keeping with the field agents • Management staff were given capacity building to enable them develop the seasonal calendar along Enso forecast systems and passed to farmers (i.e. whether El-Nino, La-Nina or Neutral weather system) • The M&E staff of the region and districts developed cropping calendars using the forecast from the seasonal weather forecasting calendars for extension transfer to farmers in the region annually • The weekly forecast data indicating dates & quantity of rains were produced and found useful in decision making on activities by stakeholders • Seasonal forecast developed for 2011 being used is shown below for Bolga, Navrongo & Bawku.

7. HOW WELL RAINFALL BEHAVED IN UER IN 2011?

8. Neutral Year Likely Rainfall Pattern for (Bolgatanga Municipal, Bongo & Tongo)

9. PROBABLE RAINFALL PATTERN IN 2011 (BUILSA, NAVRONGO, PAGA)

10. Neutral Year Likely Rainfall Pattern for Bawku, Bawku West and Garu Tempane

11. Informing Cropping Calendar through Weather forecasting Bolgatanga/Bongo/Tongo Cropping Guide

12. Builsa/Navrongo/Paga Cropping Guide Informing Cropping Calendar through Weather forecasting

13. Cropping Calendar Bawku, Bawku West & Garu Tempane Informing Cropping Calendar through Weather forecasting

14. DAILY FORECASTING TOOLS & MONITORING Rain Gauge Daily Weather Forecaster-not bigger than a cell phone! Measurement of Evaporation Rate Cell Phone Simple tools for daily weather forecasting and monitoring

15. 30-50 km area, 12-24 hr, 70-75% Skilled rainfall forecaster

16. THE LINKAGE BETWEEN 3-D MODEL & WEATHER FORECASTING

17. Making Science & Technology Work for the Poor Linking the forecaster &3-D Model by communities • Sowing decisions • Labor hiring (By Day) • Fertilizer applications • Field Insecticide application • Community Resettlement Decisions • Crop harvest decisions • Marketing activities • Post-harvest losses • Building & Construction activities • Fishing activities Forecaster

18. THE WAY FORWARD • Which Way Forward? • The need to immediately scale up the use of these simple tools in weather forecasting at farmer level in the other northern regions and the whole country that suffer from the vagaries of weather cannot be over emphasised • Other advanced systems/tools exist (Doppler Radar systems) that can be introduced to cover the whole country and protect our sea and air ports with instant detailed data on weather • Import and sale of the simple but efficient daily weather forecaster can protect a wide range of stakeholders – farmers, marketers, the construction industry, etc. • Adoption and mainstreaming the technology countrywide by decision (policy) makers for scaling up into the rest of the country • Expansion of training of all extension staff on weather forecasting and use of the gadgets to other Regions

19. WAY FORWARD NEED TO IMPROVE ACCESS TO SIMPLE TOOLS Forecaster • Innovative, simple, local weather monitor and 12-24 hour rainfall forecaster • 24 Hour Pressure trend • Pictorial displays of approaching rain • Relative Humidity • Temperature • Daily maximum and minimum data • 70-80% forecast accuracy

20. THE END