Agrometeorological forecasts for climate-proof food production in Bangladesh
Weather Impact, New Amsterdam Consult, and the local partner Delta Research Initiative (DRI), have joined forces to provide farmers in Bangladesh daily weather forecasts, agricultural management advice, monsoon onset alerts and monthly seasonal outlooks. The first step of the project was to design weather forecasts that included parameters, visualisation, and frequency. Based on advice from DRI, the consortium agreed on three parameters and developed a field survey to assess the baseline. Data was received at the end of February, and the meteorological team was able to quickly set up the algorithm for Bangladesh and configurate the Weather4Farmers App.
The App is now fully operational in Bangladesh, both in English and Bengali. It provides location specific 6-hourly and daily weather forecasts (temperature, precipitation, windspeed, cloud coverage). It also includes alerts concerning the start of the rainy season, extreme weather, and advice on the suitability of the weather for spraying pesticide, fertilising and weeding. Farmers joined an introduction of the App by local partner DRI.
To support the business case, the consortium organised a business seminar inviting relevant Bangladeshi partners to explore ways of collaboration for commercialising their service. The meeting has led to insightful ideas and suggestions about their business model from various partners. The goals of the project are to increase farmers' capacity to make data-driven decisions about water-management, irrigation, the planting calendar and extreme weather mitigation, and to improve their resilience to climate change.