Usability of weather information services for decision-making in farming: Evidence from the Ada East District, Ghana

The contribution of weather forecast information to agriculture, water, and energy sectors in East and West Africa: A systematic review

“…1) Uncertainty of obtaining information on time, continuously, and of difficulties in understanding the information (Tall, 2010;Oyekale, 2015;Zongo et al, 2016;Amegnaglo et al, 2017;Nyadzi et al, 2018;Ouedraogo et al, 2018;Ebhuoma and Simatele, 2019;Naab et al, 2019;Antwi-Agyei et al, 2021c;Ouedraogo et al, 2021;Tarchiani et al, 2021;Sarku et al, 2022) 2) Inadequate information on seasonal forecast for long-term planning, low accessibility of climate information, high levels of illiteracy, misalignment between the climate information provided and what is needed by smallholder farmers and timeliness of climate forecast/information, and the technical language used in communicating climate information 3) The inability to comprehend how anthropogenic activities contribute to climate change have also been identified as a key factor that impedes the uptake of seasonal climate forecast 4) Available information is not communicated to the understanding of all, and there is a lack of collaboration between local institutions in the production and dissemination of climate service 5) Challenges in information access and interpretation are faced by illiterate farmers who cannot read a text, and even literate farmers lack the necessary skills to understand technical information because of the format they are presented 6) Missing climate information service (CIS) and the untimely delivery of CIS.…”

“…7) The paucity of communication channels between nationallevel producers of climate knowledge and community-level users 8) Farmers' inability to understand the necessity of climate information to make their decisions in terms of agricultural production Lack of downscaled information (n = 8) 1) Lack of downscaled information (farmers emphasized that they would like to get downscaled information to allow them to take site-specific decisions) (Rasmussen et al, 2015;Nyambo and Chengula, 2017;Ouedraogo et al, 2018;Diouf et al, 2019;Ebhuoma and Simatele, 2019;Radeny et al, 2019;Ouedraogo et al, 2021;Sarku et al, 2022) 2) Seasonal climate forecasts are not usually tailored to meet enduser needs 3) Not reliable and area-specific and difficult to interpret by ordinary people 4) Seasonal weather forecasts are often not downscaled and are provided for wide areas and generalized Lack of logistics (n = 5) 1) Unavailability of dissemination technology and technical expertise (Oyekale, 2015;Wamalwa et al, 2016;Ouedraogo et al, 2018;Bacci et al, 2020;Partey et al, 2020) 2) Lack of permanent funding sources and relevant training on the ground 3) Inadequate access as a result of limitations in transmission equipment 4) Lack of training on interpretation of the information and limited participatory sharing and interpretation of weather and climate forecasts Lack of trust (n = 4)…”

“…1) The lack of management options and trust in the information source (Rasmussen et al, 2015;Amegnaglo et al, 2017;Ebhuoma and Simatele, 2019;Sarku et al, 2022) 2) Loss of confidence due to previous imprecise forecast that affected farmer productivity 3) Lack of trust in the 'unknown voices that communicated the information' hindered the willingness to rely on weather/climate information 4) The origin of the information is a factor that affected usable WIS, as farmers preferred to know the source of information and how it is produced Others (n = 5) 1) Agrometeorological services are given less priority from the Ghana Meteorological Agency (GMA) compared to other services such as aviation and military (Tall, 2010;Wamalwa et al, 2016;Nyambo and Chengula, 2017;Naab et al, 2019;Ouedraogo et al, 2021) 2) Lack of interest in the information and inadequate and inconvenient time slot allocated for seasonal climate forecasts (SCFs) broadcasting in relation to farm activity schedules of the rural people 3) The belief in indigenous knowledge 4) Meteorological information is in most cases not tailored to meet the information needs of vulnerable group decision-makers at the subnational level 5) The low information uptake was also attributed to delay in forecasts, development of advisories, and subsequent dissemination of advisories NB: n means the number of studies.…”

Alleviating impacts of climate change on fishing communities using weather information to improve fishers’ resilience

“…Weather information is used by farmers to enhance their resilience to climate change. For example, pastoral, cash, and food crop farmers in West Africa are increasingly dependent on the accurate weather information to make management decisions, including when to plant their seedlings or the type of seedlings to plant, thus integrating weather information into their decision making (Nkiaka et al, 2019;Ouedraogo et al, 2021;Sarku et al, 2022). The value of weather information for fishers' safety at sea (Diouf et al, 2020;Mbaye et al, 2021;Opemo, 2018) has long been known, but its utility for the livelihood and income of West African fishers and those involved in secondary activities has been less researched and is not well-understood (Katikiro and Macusi, 2012;Lovei, 2017;Monnereau and Oxenford, 2017).…”