IRI Strategy for Agricultural Applications
Humanity is vulnerable to impacts of climate fluctuations on agricultural production. Many critical agricultural decisions have complex interactions with climate, but must be made months before impacts of weather are realized. Seasonal climate forecasts may make it possible to adjust decisions to reduce unwanted impacts and take advantage of favorable conditions. The IRI seeks to foster application of seasonal climate prediction in a few key sectors, including agriculture. An Agriculture Applications Strategy provides a strategic overview and guidelines for IRI efforts to enhance society's capability to apply predictions of seasonal climate fluctuations to improve sustainability of agricultural production, distribution and consumption systems. Selection and evaluation of activities will be based on several criteria:
- Highest likelihood of the greatest societal benefit.
- Potential to enhance and address gaps in the entire "end-to-end" application process.
- Opportunity to address key scientific questions, refine prediction research and products, develop tools and methods, or glean transferrable lessons.
- Potential to leverage other organizations' efforts toward the IRI mission.
- Opportunity to build capacity while avoiding competition with capable regional institutions.
- Balance of activities in terms of, e.g., geographic region, project scope, spatial scale, or interests of clients.
Agricultural application efforts will be directed toward four themes:
- Refinement of IRI forecast research and products. Work will ensure that forecast products are relevant to user needs. Identified needs include (a) characterization of forecast uncertainties in an appropriate format, and (b) downscaling in space and time to link climate forecasts with requirements of crop models. IRI work with agricultural users in various regions will continually guide prediction research and refine forecast products.
- Development of tools and methods. Methodological research will advance the IRI mission particularly when the resulting tools (a) address weak links in the end-to-end forecast application process, and (b) can be applied widely and adopted by relevant institutions. Relevant research questions include downscaling forecasts in space and time, evaluation of forecasts in agricultural terms, appropriate probabilistic presentation of forecast information, and more robust and realistic representation of farm household decisions for systems analysis.
- Regional-to-local application to food production. A growing number of initiatives seek to apply climate forecasts to management of production systems to improve secure and sustainable livelihoods. To facilitate sharing of information, methods, tools and lessons learned, the IRI will cultivate a network of existing regional efforts. The IRI will foster, participate in, or initiate regional efforts when appropriate based on the criteria listed above. Collaborative efforts are planned or underway in the Greater Horn of Africa, southern India, Mali and Zimbabwe.
- Global-to-regional food security alert and response. Climate variability contributes to intermittent food shortages and distribution problems in many regions. Proper use of climate forecasts may improve lead time and accuracy of food security alerts in vulnerable regions, potentially improving the timeliness of interventions. The IRI will contribute to food security alert and response efforts by (a) exploring potential applications of climate prediction with institutions responsible for food security alerts, and (b) synthesizing and interpreting information from various sources in terms of food security implications.
