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For many generations, Caribbean smallholder farmers have used traditional knowledge to manage drought impacts. However, patterns of increased climate variability increasingly challenge traditional drought management practices, creating livelihood insecurities and uncertainties. Climate Information Services (CIS) have been promoted as an agile risk management strategy to help farmers negotiate challenges of increased climate extremes. Yet, despite the promise and possibilities of CIS, there is limited evidence of CIS uptake and associated risk reduction across the Caribbean. A mixed‐method research approach is used to examine the uptake of CIS among farmers (N = 356), testing the association with selected drought impact outcomes in one of Jamaica's breadbasket regions. The associations between drought impacts and farmer accessibility and use of four (4) locally available CIS are assessed. Results indicate limited farmer uptake of mobile text and online climate information products, with less than 5 per cent of the sample having accessibility to online CIS. Farmers who are aware of, and use CIS, reported lower crop losses, less financial strain, and were more likely to reinvest immediately after drought events. These results provide empirical evidence of associations between farm‐level use of CIS and drought risk management actions, which could be used to inform future drought management interventions.
For many generations, Caribbean smallholder farmers have used traditional knowledge to manage drought impacts. However, patterns of increased climate variability increasingly challenge traditional drought management practices, creating livelihood insecurities and uncertainties. Climate Information Services (CIS) have been promoted as an agile risk management strategy to help farmers negotiate challenges of increased climate extremes. Yet, despite the promise and possibilities of CIS, there is limited evidence of CIS uptake and associated risk reduction across the Caribbean. A mixed‐method research approach is used to examine the uptake of CIS among farmers (N = 356), testing the association with selected drought impact outcomes in one of Jamaica's breadbasket regions. The associations between drought impacts and farmer accessibility and use of four (4) locally available CIS are assessed. Results indicate limited farmer uptake of mobile text and online climate information products, with less than 5 per cent of the sample having accessibility to online CIS. Farmers who are aware of, and use CIS, reported lower crop losses, less financial strain, and were more likely to reinvest immediately after drought events. These results provide empirical evidence of associations between farm‐level use of CIS and drought risk management actions, which could be used to inform future drought management interventions.
Weather insurance is a financial instrument proposed to increase coverage of unprotected weather shocks in developing countries. Structuring sales as group-based products has been argued as a strategy to increase the attractiveness of index insurance, raising the question as to what impacts farmer demand for group insurance choices. We test if farmers prefer to purchase real-world insurance products as groups, and if groups of more similar individuals are more likely to demand group over individual index insurance for the upcoming season. We exogenously assign farmers into groups of similar versus dissimilar perceived farm size. We find that farmers, when offered, prefer group over individual insurance contracts, and that groups of farmers who perceive each other to be more similar in farm size are more likely to purchase in a group, but purchase less insurance on average.
Crop farming in Sub-Saharan Africa is constantly confronted by extreme weather events. Researchers have been striving to develop different tools that can be used to reduce the impacts of adverse weather on agriculture. Index-based crop insurance (IBCI) has emerged to be one of the tools that could potentially hedge farmers against weather-related risks. However, IBCI is still constrained by poor product design and basis risk. This study complements the efforts to improve IBCI design by evaluating the performances of the Tropical Applications of Meteorology using SATellite data and ground-based observations (TAMSAT) and Climate Hazards Group InfraRed Precipitation with Station data (CHIRPS) in estimating rainfall at different spatial scales over the maize-growing season in a smallholder farming area in South Africa. Results show that CHIRPS outperforms TAMSAT and produces better results at 20-day and monthly time steps. The study then uses CHIRPS and a crop water requirements (CWR) model to derive IBCI thresholds and an IBCI payout model. Results of CWR modeling show that this proposed IBCI system can cover the development, mid-season, and late-season stages of maize growth in the study area. The study then uses this information to calculate the weight, trigger, exit, and tick for each of these growth stages. Although this approach is premised on the prevailing conditions in the study area, it can be applied in other areas with different growing conditions to improve IBCI design.
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