Kenneth Kerr, climate meteorologist at the Trinidad and Tobago Meteorological Service, explains how computer modeling is used to provide agrometeorology services to farmers. Credit: Jewel Fraser/IPS

By Jewel Fraser
PARAMARIBO, Suriname, Oct 15 2014 (IPS)

Farmers in the Caribbean are being encouraged to make more use of farm apps and other forms of ICT in an effort to increase the knowledge available for making sound, profitable farming decisions.

Peter Thompson of Jamaica’s Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) said Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology is being increasingly used to track “localised conditions, pests and disease prevalence. The technology will not only add value to us but to the farmers in giving information that they need.”“The application of these technologies in agriculture pull in young people. If you focus on traditional means, chances are agriculture will die a natural death." -- Peter Thompson

Thompson spoke to IPS at the recently concluded Caribbean Week of Agriculture (CWA), held Oct. 6-12 in Paramaribo, Suriname.

A great deal of attention was given to “scaling up” the integration of technology into day-to-day farming practices at CWA 2014, co-sponsored by the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA) and the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI).

The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, showcased apps that students in the Department of Computing and Information Technology had developed as part of the AgriNeTT project, a collaborative effort between the Department, the Faculty of Food and Agriculture, and farmers’ representatives.

AgriNeTT’s project leader/coordinator, Dr. Margaret Bernard, said “the main focus…is developing intelligent systems within agriculture. There is a lack of data [and] many of the models being built did not have real data from the field.”

The apps are intended to support agriculture, she told IPS. “A big part of the AgriNeTT project is the development of an Open Data repository, particularly to house agriculture data on a national level… The repository will house different data sets, including farm level production data, commodity prices and volumes, farm land spatial data, soils, weather, and pest and diseases tracking data.”

Dr. Bernard said the aim of the Open Data repository was to build a platform that would be accessible throughout the Caribbean. The project seeks to encourage all in the Caribbean farming community to share in uploading data so that “developer teams can use that data creatively and build apps [for agriculture].”

She added that the creation of apps and tools based on the data would help to modernise Caribbean agriculture. “The collection, aggregation, analysis, visualisation and dissemination of data are key to Caribbean competitiveness,” Dr. Bernard said.

Dr. Bernard holds high hopes for a new app, called AgriExpenseTT, which her team developed for farm record-keeping. The app, now available for download at Google Play, allows farmers to track expenses of more than one crop at a time, track purchases of agricultural products they use on their farms, as well as track how much of the products purchased are actually used for each crop.

She said farmers who opted for the subscription service for this app would then have their data stored which would allow researchers “to verify some of the models for cost production, so we know this is what it costs to produce X amount of [any crop].”

Another reason for encouraging the use of ICT in agriculture is the need to make farming a more attractive career option for young people, CTA’s Director Michael Hailu explained. He said an important dimension to family farming, the theme of this year’s CWA, was the significant role that young people should and could play in the development of the region’s agriculture.

Since the region’s farming population is aging, “we at CTA are making a special effort to encourage young people to engage in agriculture—in ways that they can relate to, using new technologies that are far removed from the old image of farming,” he said.

To this end, CTA offered a prize to young app developers in the region who would develop innovative ICT applications to address key Caribbean agricultural challenges and foster agri-enterprise among young people.

Winners of this year’s AgriHack Talent competition, at the Caribbean Week of Agriculture 2014. The winners designed apps to be used by farmers. Photo Courtesy of CTA

Many of the apps developed for the CWA 2014 AgriHack Talent competition focused on providing farmers with useful information that is not always readily available.

Jason Scott, part of the Jamaican team that won the agricultural hackathon with their app named Node 420, said, “Collecting the information they need can be a real problem for farmers.” He said he and his colleague Orane Edwards “decided to design some hardware that could gather all sorts of data to help them with their cultivation, including planting, sowing and harvesting.”

RADA’s Thompson said, “The application of these technologies in agriculture pull in young people. If you focus on traditional means, chances are agriculture will die a natural death…We have these young guys coming in who are just hungry to do things in terms of technology. We have to help them.”

However, Faumuina Tatunai, a media specialist who works with Women and Business Development, an NGO that supports 600 farmers in Samoa, told IPS that excessive focus on attracting youth to farming through ICT may be short-sighted.

“The reality of farming is that we need young people on the farms as part of the family. To do that we need to attract them in quite holistic ways…and ICT is just part of the solution but it is not the only solution.”

She said her organisation seeks to encourage interest in farming among youth by taking a family-centred approach and encouraging all members of the family to learn about agriculture and grow together as farmers through the use of training and other opportunities.

“Everyone in the family is a farmer, whether they are six or 70 years old…our approach is to build capacity with mother, father, and child,” Tatunai said.

Edited by: Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at jwl_42@yahoo.com

These goats in the Caribbean seek out shade in a bid to ward off heat stress that is driving up livestock mortality rates in the region. Credit: Cedric Lazarus/FAO

By Jewel Fraser
PARAMARIBO, Suriname, Oct 8 2014 (IPS)

Livestock farmers in the Caribbean are finding it increasingly difficult and expensive to rear healthy animals because of climate change, a situation that poses a significant threat to a region that is already too dependent on imports to feed its population.

Norman Gibson, a livestock scientist with the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI), says the effects of climate change mean that farmers must spend more money on feedstock to produce healthy animals, as well as coping with higher mortality rates among their flocks due to heat stress.Once an animal’s core body temperature goes above 45 degrees Celsius, its homeostasis is disrupted, eventually leading to death. So Caribbean farmers are now investing in ventilation systems to keep their livestock cooler.

Gibson was part of a panel discussion at the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA)’s Caribbean Week of Agriculture (CWA), being held in Paramaribo, Suriname, Oct. 6–12. The annual event hosted by the CTA focused on promoting policies and practices that will help farmers to adapt to climate change.

Gibson pointed out that decreases in livestock production would have a significant impact on the Caribbean region, where meat forms a major part of the diet. The region imports 40 million dollars worth of meat annually from New Zealand and Australia, he told the audience, and “imports are growing faster than [local] production.”

At the same time, research has shown that climate change is resulting in higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere which “leads to changes in the nutritional status of plants”, he told IPS. He said that tropical grasses are not the most nutritious, and with increases in CO2 they become even less so.

“So animals would have to eat even more to get an acceptable level of nutrition. Because that is often impossible, if you want your animals to produce at a certain level you have to supplement with concentrated feed, which in the Caribbean is imported,” he told IPS, and expensive.

He added that in places like Guyana, that are below sea level and sinking further, salt water intrusion is further compromising the feedstock available for ruminants.

“Once salt water gets into pastures, most of the grass that we currently grow is not adapted to high levels of salts. Most of these grasses have low salt tolerance and therefore will not thrive or grow under those conditions. So scientists will now have to find new breeds of grass that are more tolerant,” he said.

He said a breed of grass from International Centre for Tropical Agriculture in Colombia was showing promise in Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Barbados and St. Kitts.

“A lot of the dairy production in Trinidad and Tobago is based on that particular grass…In St. Kitts, it is now the major grass of choice for small ruminant farmers.”

He also pointed out that temperatures were for a certainty increasing, though there was less certainty about increased precipitation. These higher temperatures lead to heat stress in animals that reduces their ability to reproduce.

Heat stress is leading to levels of mortality of up to 15 per cent among ruminants, the FAO’s Cedric Lazarus told IPS. Lazarus was also at the CWA and spoke of efforts being made around the region to reduce the heat stress being suffered by animals.

He explained that once an animal’s core body temperature goes above 45 degrees Celsius, its homeostasis is disrupted, eventually leading to death. So Caribbean farmers are now investing in ventilation systems to keep their livestock cooler, he said.

“It’s the only way you can keep those high-producing breeds of cattle and ensure they survive.” He said the use of ventilation systems was seen particularly in Barbados.

Planting more trees was also a viable—and simple—way of providing more shade for animals, he added.

He said studies showed heat stress also led to a precipitous decrease in milk yields, sometimes by as much as 33 percent, thus reducing the animal’s profitability.

Gibson added that because of the extreme heat the region has been experiencing and the resulting discomfort felt by animals, there were abnormalities in their sperm and a fall-off in vigour resulting in reduced conception rates.

“A livestock farmer’s success depends on how many animals he can get to the market each year, which is a function of how well his animals reproduce,” he told IPS.

Both Gibson and Lazarus said the impact of climate change meant that farmers would have to rely more on local breeds of ruminants to ensure they have hardy stock that can cope with the region’s increasingly intense heat, though there has been a tendency over the past 15 to 20 years to bring in foreign breeds to “improve” local livestock.

Farmers often see foreign livestock as a chance to improve their herd because it means introducing fresh blood without the problems that traditionally come with inbreeding, said Rommel Parris, a black belly sheep farmer and president of the Barbados Sheep and Goat Farmers Association.

However, Parris said, the benefits of a new genetic pool do not outweigh the disadvantages of the foreign stock in the hot Caribbean climate.

“Your cost goes up because you have to keep them in air-conditioned rooms or use fans to cool them down. You have to feed them with special feeds. You have to adjust to the diet they were receiving before. Caring for these animals is tougher than caring for those animals that are adapted to this region for years,” he told IPS.

He added that foreign stock tend to produce fewer offspring, as well, than the local breeds, and are more susceptible to the parasites in the region.

Though inbreeding of local stocks does bring a somewhat weaker herd, “farmers know how to treat their own animals. A lot of them are proactive and know what the signs are and how to prevent sickness in advance…They can pick up on them fairly quickly,” he said, thus reducing mortality rates and losses.

The majority of ruminants in the region are still the local, creole animals, Lazarus said, but the Caribbean needs to guard against the mistake made in other parts of the world, where the introduction of foreign breeds led to the extinction of local, more sustainable animals.

Edited by: Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at jwl_42@yahoo.com

By Desmond Brown
Jun 26 2014 (IPS)

Caribbean scientists are developing drought-tolerant varieties of crops which are then distributed to farmers in countries most severely affected by climate change. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
ST. JOHN'S, Antigua, Jun 26 2014 (IPS)

The Caribbean region’s bid to become food secure is in peril as farmers struggle to produce staple crops under harsh drought conditions brought about by climate change.

But scientists are fighting back, developing drought-tolerant varieties which are then distributed to farmers in those countries most severely affected.

“We are mainly affected by issues of drought and…CARDI has been looking at methods of sustainable management of production using drought tolerant varieties. We are working with certain commodities and doing applied research aimed at producing them in the dry season,” Dr. Gregory Robin, CARDI representative and technical coordinator for the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), told IPS.

“We’re starting first with the crops that are more significantly affected by drought. We take, for example, dasheen, which is a crop that requires a lot of moisture and I’m working with that crop in St. Vincent and St. Lucia,” he said.

“Validation will serve Jamaica, Grenada, Dominican Republic – all the islands that produce dasheen. Sometimes it’s not cost-effective to do activities in all the islands so some of the sweet potato work done here can be used in St. Kitts, Barbados and islands with similar agro-ecological zones and rainfall patterns,” he added.

The Trinidad-based CARDI (Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute), which has worked to strengthen the agricultural sector of member countries of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) for more than 30 years, is at the forefront of the research.

“CARDI has a body of professionals around the region so if we have any issues of climate change and drought, CARDI is a body of scientists that is available to all the islands of the CARICOM region,” Robin said.

Another crop being given special attention is sweet potato. Robin explained that for the Caribbean region, sweet potato is very important as a food security staple and foreign exchange earner.

“We’re working with the crops that we think are going to be affected most. Sweet potato can take a certain amount of moisture stress but dasheen and crops that require a high level of moisture are not going to be standing up so well to moisture stress, so we are starting with those with a high requirement of moisture first,” he said.

Noting that irrigation is key to productivity, the CARDI official explained that, “I have been working here for the past seven years and it’s the first time I’ve seen it so dry and it’s highlighting the point that we need to look at our rainwater harvesting systems.”

Climate change has also forced Guyana, considered the bread-basket of the Caribbean, to develop new varieties.

“We have also been growing different varieties of crops that are resistant to salt water because one of the impacts of climate change is that the salt water will creep more into the inland areas and so we are looking at salt-resistant rice for example; looking at crops that are much more resilient to dry weather and that can withstand periods of flooding,” Agriculture Minister Dr. Leslie Ramsammy told IPS.

“We’ve been doing things like shade technology, drip irrigation, using technology and methods and utilising animals and crops that are far more resilient to extreme weather conditions.”

In addition to developing drought-tolerant varieties, CARDI is also actively developing new technologies to assist farmers with irrigation.

“I remember when I started in agriculture probably 20 years ago farmers used to irrigate using a drum and a bucket,” Bradbury Browne told IPS.

But he said over the years CARDI has introduced drip irrigation technology and other types of irrigation technology.

“For example if I want to apply 3,000 gallons of water to an acre of sweet potato I can programme [the irrigation system] so that I don’t have to be there physically to be turning on a hose or a pipe and there would be no issue of flooding if I am called away on an emergency,” said Browne, who now serves as a field technician at CARDI.

Meanwhile, longtime legislator in Antigua and Barbuda Baldwin Spencer noted that more frequent and extreme droughts are expected to become a feature of Caribbean weather.

And he said the impact of such drought conditions will increase heat stress, particularly for the more vulnerable, such as the elderly.

“Despite the decline in the production and export of major agricultural commodities from the OECS, agriculture remains an important sector in the economic and social development of the region from the stand-point of food security, rural stability and the provision of input to other productive sectors,” said Spencer, who served as prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda from March 2004 until Jun. 12 this year.

“These benefits are at risk from climatic events and this risk only increases as the climate continues to change,” he said.

Experts project that decreased production levels of major crops combined with increasing food demand will pose large risks to all aspects of food security globally and regionally including food access, utilisation and price stability.

The World Bank said food security is consistently seen as one of the key challenges for the coming decades and by the year 2050, the world will need to produce enough food to feed more than 2.0 billion additional people, compared to the current 7.2 billion.

It said most of the population growth will be concentrated in developing countries, adding pressure to their development needs.

The World Bank added that to meet future food demand, agricultural production will need to increase by 50-70 percent, according to different estimates. And this will happen as the impacts of climate change are projected to intensify overall, particularly hitting the poorest and most vulnerable countries.

Kenneth Kerr, climate meteorologist at the Trinidad and Tobago Meteorological Service, explains how computer modeling is used to provide agrometeorology services to farmers. Credit: Jewel Fraser/IPS

By Jewel Fraser
PORT OF SPAIN, Dec 31 2013 (IPS)

In the southwest peninsula of Cedros, one of Trinidad’s driest areas, Jenson Alexander grows the cocoa used for many years by the British chocolate giant Cadbury.

Dry conditions mean that he frequently faces bush fires, a challenge compounded by increasing climate variability that makes it difficult to predict when an extended dry season, and the fires that accompany it, are likely to occur.“We are dealing with a science that has large uncertainties and 10 days ahead is very long in terms of how the atmosphere may or may not change." -- Kenneth Kerr

So in May, when the Trinidad and Tobago Meteorological Service (TTMS) began issuing weather bulletins specifically to keep farmers updated on expected weather conditions, he found a measure of relief.

“Before, it was difficult when you were expecting to have rain and [instead] you were having drought…and bush fires,” Alexander told IPS.

The 10-day bulletins for farmers that the TTMS issues have considerably reduced the uncertainty, he said. “Now we have updates, we can plan better, if we are having an extended dry season. So bush fires won’t affect us” as they did before, he said.

Kenneth Kerr, a climate meteorologist at TTMS, told IPS that “cocoa farmers have indicated that they found the bulletins very useful.”

Trinidad boasts some of the finest cocoa in the world and the makers of Cadbury chocolate once owned and operated a cocoa estate in the island.

Kerr is one of two meteorologists in Trinidad and Tobago who produce 10-day forecasts geared specifically to the farming community. The other, Arlene Aaron-Morrison, is a trained agrometeorologist as well as a climatologist.

Aaron-Morrison explains that the work of a meteorologist differs somewhat from that of an agrometeorologist. “The focus is different,” she said. “A meteorologist focuses on aviation meteorology while the agrometeorologist focuses on agriculture.”

The decision to provide climate forecasts specifically for farmers came out of a joint initiative launched in 2010 by the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology, the World Meteorological Organisation, the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute, and the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services of 10 Caribbean countries.

This initiative is known as the Caribbean Agrometeorological Initiative (CAMI).

Its objective is to increase and sustain farm productivity in the Caribbean region “through improved applications of weather and climate information using an integrated and coordinated approach.”

CAMI’s website states that support for agriculture is a priority since the  sector not only contributes to food security but also helps to reduce poverty and stimulate economic growth.

CAMI acknowledges that, “The Caribbean region is vulnerable to a wide range of natural hazards, ranging from catastrophic events such as floods, droughts, and tropical cyclones to pests and diseases in plants, animals and humans.

“Especially in poor rural areas, these disasters cause much suffering, infrastructure and environmental damage, aggravate food insecurity and slow down or even reverse development gains.

“Climate variability, climate change and land degradation are intimately linked and are generating unexpected effects, e.g., an increased occurrence of extreme weather conditions in the Caribbean region,” states CAMI’s website.

Against this background, a number of meteorologists around the region have been trained in agrometeorology. They now provide regular updates to farmers regarding the weather conditions expected in the days or month ahead.

“Those updates are very beneficial,” Alexander said. “Now, we can plan our programme better in the field, whether it is harvesting or planting.”

Kerr explained that the TTMS provides both a two to three-page Agromet Forecast and a four to five-page Agromet Bulletin. The forecast gives a 10-day prediction of rainfall and temperature for the north, south, east, west and central areas of Trinidad and for Tobago, with a brief summary at the end as to how these expected conditions will affect the work of farmers.

The Agromet Bulletin discusses at length the preceding 10 days’ weather, as well as  the next 10 days’ forecast. It includes data on wind speed and expected humidity. It also analyses in detail how farmers can best respond to the expected climate conditions.

Both the forecast and the bulletin provide the forecasts in terms of percentage probability.

“We are dealing with a science that has large uncertainties and 10 days ahead is very long in terms of how the atmosphere may or may not change. That is why we use probability,” Kerr said.

The forecast and bulletin provide definitions of the terms used and of the likelihood associated with a particular percentage probability. A probability greater than 70 percent means there is a very good chance that the forecast will prove true.

Kerr added, “The further away from the day the forecast was made, the less accurate it is. Ten days is the maximum for any degree of credibility.”

Kerr explained how farmers may use the forecast: If two of the 10 days are expected to be wet, the weather will hamper fieldwork. On the other hand, “it provides an opportunity for the farmer to harvest rainwater or may reduce the need for irrigation during those two days. Or it may act as a buffer for drier days or reduce heat stress for newly planted or germinating crops.”

Such analysis on how farmers can work with the impending weather conditions is routinely provided in the Agromet Bulletins.

The forecasts are done through computer modelling. “We use several models to look at what is happening and to see what is most likely to occur. Then using our subjective judgement based on our training and experience along with the climatology of the various locations, we arrive at a forecast for the different districts,” Kerr explained.

The findings are supplied to farmers through e-mail, the media, and one-on-one, said Aaron-Morrison.

The bulletin and forecast are also made available through agricultural extension offices and other agriculture-based organisations, including the Agricultural Society of Trinidad and Tobago, the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute and the Tobago House of Assembly.

Ramdeo Boondoo grows several root crops on his farm, including sweet potatoes, cassava, yam and tannia in Caroni, Trinidad. Credit: Jewel Fraser/IPS

By Jewel Fraser
CARONI, Trinidad, Dec 22 2013 (IPS)

Ramdeo Boondoo, a root crop farmer in Caroni, Trinidad, understands better than most the challenge of developing crops that are both climate resilient and marketable.

“It is the eye that buys, not the money,” Boondoo said. Crops must be able to resist effects of climate change while looking and tasting as good as their traditional counterparts. But such produce requires decades of experimentation, which researchers in the Trinidad are beginning to undertake.

“It is very rare that you will get [a genetically altered] crop that is as good as any of the parents” from which the new variety is made, said Herman Adams, a consultant at the Trinidad-based Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI).

Popular varieties of crops were developed over the centuries by people cutting slips of old varieties that they enjoyed and then growing them as clones in a process known as vegetative reproduction, according to Adams."It takes over 20 years of selection and cross-pollinating to get the right qualities."
-- Herman Adams

Developing climate-resilient crops, however, requires sexual reproduction – combining one climate-resilient crop with another variety, which has a preferable taste or shape, to produce a new variety.

“It takes over 20 years of selection and cross-pollinating to get the right organoleptic qualities, including taste, which is hard to recapture,” Adams said. Organoleptic qualities are those affecting the senses.

He explained that sexual reproduction disrupts the parental genetic combination that gives the traditional varieties their appealing taste.

Boondoo has been working on developing a sweet potato that combines the climate-resilient qualities of the traditional “chicken foot” variety popular in Trinidad with the uniform shape of the American Centennial sweet potato.

The chicken foot sweet potato is the most resilient, according to Boondoo. “It withstands drought and damp conditions,” he said. “But…they do not carry a uniform shape or size.”

Manufacturers of agro-products, such as chips and flour made of cassava or plantain, want crops that are not just uniform in taste but also in shape, to make mechanical processing easier. The American Centennial variety has a uniform shape but does not appeal to locals who are accustomed to sweet potatoes with a firmer consistency.

If Boondoo can develop a sweet potato with the traits of both the chicken foot and the American Centennial, he will be better able to supply food processors while also giving local consumers more variety, and his crop losses due to floods or droughts would be greatly reduced.

Chairperson of the Tobago Agro Processors Association, Darilyn Smart, also emphasised that “uniformity is key for the export, hotel and restaurant sectors.”

“In order to export to the EU, produce must meet requirements in terms of size, shape, degree of ripeness, and so on,” Smart told IPS. “For the hotels and restaurants it is also important that we provide consistent products, especially if they are being used on the buffet table.”

Producing new varieties of crops that meet these exacting standards is “a long process”, according to Adams. It involves cross-pollination of the plant, first on a small scale, and then, depending on the initial outcome, large-scale field trials are conducted.

Another objective of these trials is also to produce “high-yielding, competitively priced products,” Boondoo said.

CARDI is working with farmers on these field trials to identify climate-resilient varieties that will also fare well on the market. The institute’s assistance includes training in good agricultural practices, said Dr. Janet Lawrence, an entomologist and programme leader for protected agriculture at CARDI.

“When you create a good environment through [good agricultural practices], then varieties can show their true genetic potential,” Adams explained. Those varieties that show the greatest promise are then used for the field trials.

Smart told the IPS that the Tobago Agro Processors Association will soon be introducing its own pilot project to “ensure crops are uniform, consistent, and disease free, as much as possible.” The project will rely on bio and organic farming methods.

Some of the produce from this project will be used by agro-processors, who will manufacture a value-added product for hotels and supermarkets. “We’re seeking to export the other products to the Caribbean and European countries,” she said.

CARDI also manages a germplasm bank where farmers can obtain material for new varieties of produce with greater yields than popular varieties that are planted, Lawrence said. The germplasm bank has over 14 varieties of cassava and 12 of sweet potato.

As well as breeding climate-resilient varieties, CARDI is promoting the use of protected agriculture – altering the environment to enhance growth – to protect crops from extreme or adverse weather conditions and to control pests that are associated with climate variability and change.

Protected agriculture “spans a continuum from the use of row covers, shade structures to complex structures/greenhouses,” Lawrence said in an e-mail.

Through its protected agriculture research and development programme, CARDI “has sought to generate, validate and transfer ‘best’ practices that have the potential to improve the efficiency and productivity of the [protected agriculture] operations,” Lawrence told IPS.

Studies in protected agriculture include evaluations of heat tolerant varieties, coverings to reduce temperatures within protected systems, and management strategies to suppress pests. Developing shade structures to exclude insect pests are also included.

CARDI has worked with several local, regional and agricultural organisations to disseminate information on the basic principles and practices of protected agriculture, Lawrence said. So far the institute has trained over 200 individuals and organisations.

Ramgopaul Roop explains how sustainable farming, including conservation farming and a water harvesting system, has allowed him to run a successful business despite unpredictable climate conditions. Credit: Jewel Fraser/IPS

By Jewel Fraser
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, Nov 25 2013 (IPS)

Even as weather extremes bedevil Caribbean farmers, Ramgopaul Roop has turned his three-acre fruit farm into a showcase for how to beat climate change.

His conservation farming methods include water harvesting and growing lemon grass as mulch. Since the grass is also a weed, it discourages the growth of other harmful weeds without the use of herbicides.“Farmers always asked, ‘When do we plant? When is the rain going to start?’” -- Dr. Leslie Simpson

“Because of the system using lemon grass and pommecythere trees growing lower than the lime trees, my land is covered with vegetation, so that we can adapt to climate changes,” Roop told IPS.

“If it is hot, we have this natural mulch under the crop. If it is raining, it helps to reduce the soil erosion,” he explained.

Roop is now the regional administrator for the Caribbean Agribusiness Association (CABA), an organisation mandated by the 15-member regional grouping Caricom to work with regional farmers’ groups to find agroprocessing opportunities.

CABA serves as a collective voice for farmers in the region through advocacy and assistance with trade negotiations.

Roop, who has farmed in Trinidad for 25 years, said that compliance with a country’s environmental regulations is key to success. This has proven true in the case of his own property, Rocrops Agrotech, which is used as a model farm by Trinidad and Tobago’s Environmental Management Authority.

His strategies have enabled Rocrops to supply agroprocessors with 10,000–12,000 limes weekly, 52 weeks a year, over the past five years.

“If farmers adopted the methods that I have implemented, they would be able to develop small holder farms to produce year-round to increase their level of production so that they could fulfil commitments to processing facilities,” he said.

“Small-holding farms can be developed into a sustainable unit that can be passed on to the next generation,” Roop added.

Across the region, Caribbean farmers are seeking reliable climate data to help them make better decisions when planning their crops. To meet this demand, the European Union and African, Caribbean and Pacific group (ACP) are training meteorologists to interact directly with farmers to provide accurate, timely information on weather patterns.

Monthly or trimonthly agricultural bulletins also discuss the possible effects on agriculture of the weather forecasted by the agro-metereologists.

Jamaica has also launched a website dedicated to providing twice-daily weather forecasts for farmers. Farmers can plug in the name of their location for detailed information on temperature, humidity, windspeed and other relevant data.

The training of the agrometereologists and the publishing of the bulletins are part of a larger EU-ACP project known as the Caribbean Agrometereological Initiative (CAMI), whose aim is to improve agricultural productivity in the region through the “improved dissemination and application of weather and climate information using an integrated and coordinated approach.”

CAMI’s partners include the Caribbean Institute for Metereology and Hydrology and the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI), among others.

Dr. Leslie Simpson said that Caribbean farmers have been in dire need of “access to information about what is happening and what is expected to happen with regard to climate change, and then information on how they can deal with these changes and risks.”

Farmers at workshops co-sponsored by CARDI “always asked, ‘When do we plant? When is the rain going to start?’” said Dr. Simpson, who is the natural resources management specialist with responsibility for climate change at CARDI.

The region’s increasing climate variability and the effects of climate change are making it difficult for farmers to determine when best to plant their crops, since the type of crop planted at a given time of year depends on the amount of rain expected then.

Region-wide discussions with farmers revealed that the foremost needs were for seasonal and inter-annual climate forecasts, forecasting for crop disease and pest incidence, and user-friendly weather and climate information.

Dr. Simpson said that “dealing with the variability of the present weather situation is the first step [for farmers] in dealing with any future climate change.”

CAMI notes that, “Short-range forecasts are normally available one day in advance, but modern agricultural practices …require weather forecasts with higher lead time which enable the farmers to take ameliorative measures.

“Thus, for the agricultural sector, location-specific weather forecast in the medium range (three to 10 days in advance) is very important. These forecasts and advisories should be made available in a language that farmers can understand.”

A second CARDI project now underway to help Caribbean farmers deal with climate change is being sponsored by the European Development Fund and administered by the ACP. This project is to help identify strains of crops that would be resilient to climate variability and climate change.

Dr. Arlington Chesney, CARDI’s executive director, told IPS that the project would focus firstly on starches and vegetable protein since “those are critical components of the diet of the majority of people in the region.”

Among the crops identified for research are sweet potato, cassava, corn, peas and beans. Dr. Chesney said the project has done a review of the soil types and changes in temperatures and rainfall patterns in various islands over the past 20 years, preparatory to selecting the crop varieties for investigation.

“We would try to characterise these varieties morphologically and genomically. We are looking at their DNA to determine if there are some inherent characteristics that are more resilient to climate change so that we could, with time, have a group of these varieties that we could say have a better than average chance of doing well under these new [climate] conditions,” Dr. Chesney said.

Much of the DNA work will be done by CARDI’s European partner in the project, the Wageningen University in Holland, which is considered one of the foremost agricultural universities in that country.

The university “will also do matching between the DNA crop performance and ecological measurements, temperatures, and rainfall,” said Dr. Chesney. CARDI will be providing mainly logistical and technical support on the project.

Dr. Chesney, like CAMI, stresses that his organisation’s work on equipping farmers to cope with climate change seeks to ensure the region’s food supply by improving farmers’ standard of living.