Climate services for smallholder farmers webinar featuring James Hansen
Through the ages, farmers have used indigenous knowledge and traditional coping strategies to adapt to changes in weather and climate conditions. Now, increasingly erratic climate variability is making it difficult for farmers to keep up.
Easily accessible and timely scientific information can help societies not only limit the economic and social damage caused by climate-related disasters, but also take advantage of opportunities provided by favorable conditions. Climate services are meant to fill this need. They will ensure that the best available climate science is effectively communicated with agriculture, water, health and other sectors, to develop and evaluate mitigation and adaptation strategies.
A new report presents lessons learned from 18 case studies across Africa and South Asia that have developed and delivered weather and climate information and related advisory services for smallholder farmers, demonstrating that scaling up these services for millinos of farmers is possible today. Author Dr. James Hansen will present the implications of this review for investment in climate services creation and improvement.
Dr. James Hansen holds a Ph.D in Agricultural and Biological Engineeringn from the University of Florida, an M.S. in Agronomy and Social Science and B.S. in General Tropical Agriculture from the University of Hawaii. He has worked on managing climate-related risk for agriculture and food security since 1996 - first at the University of Florida where he was part of the Southeast Climate Consortium, then since 1999 in his present position as a Research Scientist at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) at Columbia University.
