We’re deploying ‘ground truthing’ weather info to help farmers build resilience

As climate change impacts intensify around the country with erratic rainfall, stakeholders are developing new approaches to mitigation and adaptation to help farmers build resilience. The African Agricultural Technology Foundation has started working on weather stations that use ground truthing to complement the weather stations provided by the satellites and information from the weather stations […]

As climate change impacts intensify around the country with erratic rainfall, stakeholders are developing new approaches to mitigation and adaptation to help farmers build resilience.

The African Agricultural Technology Foundation has started working on weather stations that use ground truthing to complement the weather stations provided by the satellites and information from the weather stations in NiMet.

Dr Kayode Sanni, the lead for rice project and digital agriculture at the African Agricultural Technology Foundation, told Daily Trust in Abuja during the Climate Resilience in Action: Collaborative Approaches to Adaptation meeting that a new approach was needed to scale up adaptation.

He said the system will help gather information under the canopy of the vegetation and plants so that it can be combined in a station where the ‘ground-truthing information’, which the remote sensor can gather, to inform, apart from the rainfall, the moisture in the soil and the levels of moisture that a particular plant needs to survive.

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“A good practical application of that is, if there’s no rainfall for the next two weeks, we give this information to farmers.

“And so, what we are doing here will be able to advise and guide the farmer that you will have no rainfall for the next two weeks, but because of the nature of your soil, you don’t need to bother yourself about watering until that two weeks because your soil nature can retain water and supply water to the plants.  And for those whose nature of their soil is sandy, which is not able to retain water, we can advise farmers on how many times they need to irrigate their farm before that rainfall comes again.

“What makes this collaboration unique is that we’re not just giving weather information; we are giving information on agronomic practices that can make farmers be able to even keep themselves until the rain comes. Not just rain is not going to fall, no. We are giving advice on how a farmer is going to manage themselves until the time that rain comes.  And apart from that, we are linking it up with different procedures that are going to make farmers increase their productivity.

 

“For example, we are looking at what are the structures of the soil that are going to help farmers to know the depth at which they need to plant their crops so that they can have maximum yield,” Dr Sanni explained.

Professor Charles Anosike, the Director General/Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet), opined that the country must now leverage AI technologies in weather forecasting.

Effective early warning today is highly dependent on continuous technological investment is crucial for building climate resilience and food security.

“Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionising weather forecasting and playing a crucial role in building climate resilience. AI-powered tools can provide valuable insights for policymakers, helping them develop more effective policies for climate adaptation and mitigation. How do we continue to build better capacity on physical models and weather data collection while staying on track with AI trends?” he asked.

Professor Anosike, however, said that although AI is unlikely to replace physical models in the near future, the country must scale up investments in the technology for better early warning systems to farmers and other end users.

“By providing timely weather information about Impending hazards to help reduce the impact of climate disasters, safeguard lives and livelihoods, leveraging technological advancements and innovative solutions can help accelerate climate action and enhance resilience,” he added.