Climate Services for Farmers: Jamaica

Follow-up coverage from the recently held Third International Conference on Climate Services (ICCS3) continues, this time from our partners at the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS).

The World Bank’s Ana E. Bucher gives an informative overview of the climate challenges faced by farmers in Mafoota, a small farming community in St. James Parish, just outside Montego Bay. Some of the ICCS3 participants visited Mafoota as part of a learning journey organized by the Jamaican Rural Agricultural Development Agency (RADA) and supported by CCAFS.

Drought is a main risk, Bucher writes, despite farmers having access to irrigation, which depends on a nearby stream. “Rainfall has been somewhat erratic in the past few years, leading to the stress of increasing droughts. These extreme climate events have shown local farmers that rivers can run dry and they need access to better information to act upon and adapt to increasing climate variability and change.”

Head over to the CCAFS blog to read more about farming life in Mafoota and the steps farmers and government agencies are taking toward climate-smart planning.

Watch a video from the Mafoota visit:

In another post, IRI’s James Hansen, who leads the CCAFS theme on Climate Risk Management, provides an overview of all the conference activities related to meeting the needs smallholder farmers around the world. He links to presentations, videos and other resources that highlight current challenges and best practices in climate services geared for agriculture.

In the video below, CCAFS scientist Arame Tall summarizes a session from ICCS3 which dealt with scaling up climate services for farmers.

You can find conference commentary from many participants by following the #ICCS3 tag on Twitter.