Farmers get access to agro forecasts

Farmers and agricultural experts across the Lao PDR will now have easy access to more detailed agro-metrological weather forecasts. The newly launched Climate Service for Agriculture (CSA) programme will keep them up-to-date.
Two-day training sessions are being organised across the country by the National Agriculture and Forestry Research Institute (NAFRI) to help farmers understand and interpret the forecasts.

The first training was organised with the help of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations’ GEF-funded project “Strengthening agro-climatic monitoring and information systems to the adaptation to climate change and food security in the Lao PDR” (SAMIS). The project aims to help raise capacities and productivity in daily agro-meteorology activities in the Lao PDR.
Speaking at the training workshop in Vientiane province on December 8-9, NAFRI Director-General Dr Saysongkham Phimmasone said learning how to use the application of meteorological and agro-meteorological information for agricultural production will help farmers deal better with the vagaries of the weather,” said SAMIS Project Coordinator Dr Monica Petri.
She said the NAFRI team had been able to design a specialised and innovative programme for training, adding essential information about more complex modelling, including the Dynamic Crop Calendar, and the advancement of Farmer Field Schools to focus on climate adaptation.
The developments will strengthen and support Lao farmers as they confront climate change, she said.
“FAO and its partners are strengthening efforts to support Laos in climate change resilience with multiple actors and in various capacity development activities.”
“All stakeholders have a critical role in the development of Laos so that farmers have more food security,” Dr Monica Petri said.
Involving local experts, the training offered a chance to participants to become better informed and engage with this innovative methodology.
The training also offered lessons on how to use LaCSA and how to upload data in LaCSA. The LaCSA system provides seasonal forecast of rainfall and temperature as well as crop calendar, alerts about pests and diseases in near-real-time (once per week) during the crop season. The LaCSA system is an initiative of the Department of Meteorology and Hydrology with the support of many entities in the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, including NAFRI.

By Times reporters  
(Latest Update December 15, 2020)