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The Walker Institute and the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) invite you to a live-stream event to launch a new participatory climate services field manual.

When: Wednesday 28 October
Time: 14.00 - 15.30 GMT [Convert to your time zone]
Where:
- Online: on CCAFS Stream Page

- Onsite: Walker Institute, University of Reading, UK. To attend in person contact Kathy Maskell [k.maskell@reading.ac.uk]

DOWNLOAD PICSA FLYER (PDF)

The manual provides a field guide to using the Participatory Integrated Climate Services for Agriculture (PICSA) approach.

PICSA is successfully being used to support smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa to integrate locally relevant climate and agricultural information into their farming and livelihood decisions.

Who is the manual for?

Everyone with an interest in design and delivery of climate services to smallholder farmers will find the manual useful. This includes agriculture extension officers, development and research institutions and climate information programs, as well as non-governmental organisations, community workers and research for development projects using participatory approaches in research and development work.

What is PICSA?

The development of PICSA has been led by a research team from the University of Reading’s Walker Institute and Statistical Services Centre as part of CCAFS research work. Development of the approach has also been funded by Nuffield Africa and the Rockefeller Foundation. PICSA has been developed working with partners in Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Kenya during the last four years. Farmers involved have reported changing practices, such as choosing new crops and varieties, diversifying livelihoods and adjusting livestock enterprises.

The approach is currently being scaled out in Ghana, Malawi, Tanzania and Lesotho with the support of the National Meteorological Agencies and in collaboration with World Food Programme (WFP), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), government organisations and NGOs.

Provisional Event Programme

> Welcome by Professor Julian Park, Head of School, Agriculture Policy & Development, Walker Institute University of Reading
> The PICSA approach and manual; experiences and lessons learned; scaling-up the approach by Dr. Peter Dorward based at Walker Institute, University of Reading
> National metrological services and the role they play for PICSA by Professor Roger Stern, based with the Statistical Services Centre, University of Reading
> Feedback from the field including a interview/video with practitioners
> Discussions on shared learning and experiences and future development of PICSA

The event will be live-streamed with audience engagement and discussion via an online chat-box or twitter using the hashtag #PICSA.

Learn more about the PICSA work:
- PICSA: climate-services for smallholder farmers [PICSA on Walkert Institute page]
- Putting farmers at the centre of climate information services [Flyer]
- Getting participatory agriculture climate services out to farmers [PICSA Project Page]
- How to best support farmers with useful climate information services [blog]

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