Using Text Messages to Share Climate Information
Gregory Benchwick
Senegalese Farmers Utilizing Text Messages In Place Of Atlas
The project is also underway in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Ghana – all particularly vulnerable to climate extremes.
Senegalese farmers have long relied on traditional weather indicators, such as trees blooming or where birds set their nests, to manage their crops. But those have become unreliable as a result of increasingly variable weather patterns in the region.
“The overall amount of rainfall has decreased in the past decades, as the rainy season starts later and lasts for a shorter amount of time,” said Ousmane Ndiaye, a meteorologist and researcher at the national meteorological agency.
Weather updates are sent by text in French to farmers who have volunteered for the pilot programme in seven regions across the country. They relay the information to fellow farmers in local languages, as needed.
Extreme weather incidents like heavy rainfall or windstorms will trigger a text message such as “Forecast: heavy rain expected in Kaffrinein two hours.”
The project is also underway in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Ghana – all particularly vulnerable to climate extremes.
Djaby and fellow farmers says they use the updates to make more informed farming decisions.
To test the service’s effectiveness, Mariama Keita, a farmer who cultivates millet and groundnuts, allocated two hectares of her land to millet and peanuts for a comparative study.
She farmed half of each hectare using only climate information sent by text messages, and cultivated the other half using traditional weather indicators.
“We now see that traditional ways of predicting the weather just don’t work,” said Keita. “With climate updates I know that if it rainstomorrow I can save my fertiliser for another day.”
Djaby concurs. “When cultivating, if you don’t have the right information then you’re walking without seeing the path,” he said.
To broaden the weather service’s reach, the meteorological agency partners with the National Community Radio Network – made up of 96 stations which farmers can also listen to on their phones – to broadcast weather information in French as well as local languages.
The meteorological agency sends daily weather forecasts – including marine forecasts for fishermen – to the radio stations and trains the presenters on how to interpret the information.
“We’ve seen a lot of lives and livelihoods lost in the fishing and farming industries because of adverse weather conditions and poor planning,” said Tala Dieng, president of the radio network. “This service helps reduce their losses.”
Future plans to expand the service include issuing recorded voice me ssages on phones, so that illiterate farmers can also access weather information.
source: News.Trust.Org
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Greg Benchwick Senior Communications Specialist Programme on Climate Information for Resilient Development in Africa (CIRDA) Global Environment Finance Unit United Nations Development Programme Email: gregory....@undp.org Twitter: @c4dglobal Tel: +1 303-717-7502 Skype: gbenchwick
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