Agro-meteorological forecasts in the Bangladeshi delta

Agro-meteorological forecasts and advisories for climate-proof food production in Bangladesh

Weather Impact and New Amsterdam Consult, together with local partner Delta Research Initiative, have joined forces to provide farmers in Bangladesh with daily weather forecasts combined with agricultural management advice, monsoon onset alerts and monthly seasonal outlooks. Increasing the farmers' capacity to make data-driven decisions about water-management, irrigation, planting calendar and extreme weather mitigation and improve their resilience to climate change.

The project will focus on the Lower Ganges Delta in Bangladesh, a vulnerable place due to increased climate variability. By bridging the gap between farmers and weather information, the consortium wants to increase water usage efficiency and increase food production. Together with the daily forecasts, farmers are able to better plan their agricultural activities, and decide when to plant their crops.

Joint forces

Weather Impact is bringing in its experience and successful results from Kenya – where the forecasts were evaluated to provide 90% accuracy, crop yields increased by 15% and farmers saved 10% on inputs. Receiving daily, high-resolution weather advice is rare amongst Bangladesh's farmers, particularly when made available as accurate, user-friendly text messages.

Local partner Delta Research Initiative connects the forecasts and advisories to the end-user, in particular Weather Schools which provide training and capacity building to farmers. Previous research has shown that the target farmer groups, which are mostly rice farmers (critical to food security) have already shown a willingness to pay for climate information services. Their farmer's network has been built with the development of Waterapps, a water information service.

New Amsterdam Consult is supporting this project with business development, research, monitoring and evaluation.

Winning Water for Food proposal

The proposal was selected by a review committee, in collaboration with NWP, for its innovative yet easy-to-use technology upscaling potential in Bangladesh and the rest of the region, as well as for an excellent example of a business-driven introduction of a very valuable farming tool, backed by a strong local partner and network: the Weather Schools.

From an overwhelming 42 applications received on the Call for Proposals – for which Dutch water and agrifood organisations were invited to submit proposals for developing business cases that offer concrete and viable solutions in the water-agrifood nexus – 3 projects received the highest scores.

While applicants were given free reign on the choice of location and sub-theme of their project, proposals were assessed on the project's sustainability and inclusivity and their impact at a local level, on their specific water contribution element, on their contribution to food security, and particularly on the scalability and financial feasibility of the business case.