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The preparatory note of this Workshop (WMO/CAgM 2005) gives six specific objectives of the Workshop. Others will deal with identification and assessment of the components of farmers’ agrometeorological coping strategies with risks and uncerainties, discuss the major challenges to these coping strategies (e.g. ), review the opportunities that farmers have, to cope with agrometeorological risks and uncertainties, and provide examples. In this paper we particularly discuss and recommend suitable policy and policy support options to comply with farmers’ conditions and needs that determine their vulnerabilities as well as their windows of opportunity. This includes the role of weather and climate information approaches and information technologies and whether new approaches and technologies have roles to play. If this is the case we should find out what determines the scope of the application of such developments. We belong to the schools that want to make a plea for achieving a “culture of disaster preparedness” (e.g. ; ) and we feel that the term “risk management” should be abandoned for all but the richest farmers (). The key-word in preparedness is not “management” but “resilience” (e.g. ; ). An analysis of farmers’ agroecological resistance to drought in Africa and to hurricanes/cyclones in Central America and India indicated independently that resilience has a social as well as a technical dimension (; ; ).

On-farm applications to cope with agrometeorological risks and uncertainties cannot be defined objectively without detailed description of all the external and internal driving forces, related events, direct and indirect impacts, consequential effects, available technology and resources, and farmer’s implementation ability, governmental supporting system and national infrastructure. Nevertheless, it may be practiced through an ordinary farm management system when combined or linked together with an appropriate early warning system for natural hazards, if available. The creation of data archives and information bases are essential to decision making as well as research on hazards and warning systems. Components of an early warning system include: observation, detection, monitoring, assessment, forecasting, warning, projection and, valuation.

Farmers work within an environment characterized by highly variable biophysical, economic, political and institutional conditions. They are, thus, exposed to several types of risks which include production risk, yield risk, price or market risk, institutional risk, financial risk and human (or personal) risk (). Hardaker et al. (1997) and Harwood et al. (1999) defined these agrometeorological risks as follows: Any particular combination of risk-reducing measures can be defined as a risk management strategy. Risk perception is usually the first step in risk management. Individual farmers respond to these risks in highly variable ways, depending on the degree of their exposure and their coping abilities which are influenced by factors such as human and financial resources and networks, institutional support and most often, the quality of the natural resources available.

Methods and results of this recent branch of atmospheric sciences must be the most simple and accessible as possible. For this reason, the Institute of Biometeorology, (part of the National Research Council, http://www.ibimet.cnr.it), has developed a physically — based statistical approach to obtain seasonal forecasts, regarding rainfall precipitation, over Sahel region.

Large investments of about Rs.800 billion since Independence has gone into development of surface irrigation projects and the gross irrigated area increased from 22.56 m ha to 75.14 m ha by 2000-01 in India. In spite of large-scale developments in irrigation sector, the agricultural production remains static at 212 mt, a cause of great concern, which is mainly attributed to the inefficient water management practices, poor maintenance of structures and water conveyance systems. In this review article, various issues, perspectives and strategies in water management research programs were highlighted. The impact of climate change on water resources at global level and at national level has also been discussed. A few case studies on improving the water use efficiencies through watershed programs carried out at CRIDA, Hyderabad are mentioned. Social problems in implementing water management strategies have been indicated.

Some risks in the agricultural sector are unavoidable while others can be managed. Agrometeorological risks in the farming sector include the temporal and spatial variability of rainfall, temperature, evaporation and, in climate change scenarios, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. While such factors may impact directly on plant growth and development they can also exert an important indirect effect by influencing the life cycles of plant diseases and pests. In addition they may have a profound influence on attempts to control such pests, as is seen when an unexpected rainfall event causes dilution or early hydrolysis of a surface pesticide, or when hail damage opens the way for mould, bacterial or insect attack. Integrated pest management (IPM) must take into account such risks if crop damage is to be minimized. The implications of agrometeorological risk studies in countries such as Australia offer not only local perspectives on IPM but also provide information for improved crop profitability, natural resource usage and agricultural sustainability in other countries, where a critical relationship between crop success, regional food security and human survival may exist.

The 1997–1998 El-Niño caused an extreme drought in the northeastern region with considerable losses for agriculture, livestock, water resources and society. Regionally, the impact of these anomalies can be striking. In the southeastern region, for example, in the State of São Paulo in the El Niño period, the effects caused by this phenomenon were quite different with above average rainfall in months like May and June. This situation can be observed, as indicated by the rainfall anomalies represented by the monthly Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) for the month of May in 1998 (Figure 17.1). The occurrence of these anomalies lead the State Government to create a task force involving the various sectors of society, such as, research institutes, universities and the civil defense, to propose mitigation measures.

Desertification was defined as “land degradation in arid, semi-arid or sub-humid dry areas resulting from various factors including climatic variations and human activities” in the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). About two-thirds of the countries of the world, one-fifth of the global population and one-fourth of the land of the earth are now affected by desertification with a direct economic loss about US$ 42.3 billion every year. Desertification has become a source of poverty and a constraint to socioeconomic sustainable development. Combating desertification, ecological improvement and sustainable development is an imperative hard task for the world.

The pressure of increasing world population demands for higher crops yields from the finite area of productive agricultural lands. Meeting the needs especially in developing countries through more intensive use of existing agricultural lands and expansion into more marginal lands will substantially increase erosion. There is an urgent need to take preventive and control measures to mitigate the threat to global food security. These concerns are supported by a report by El Swaify (1994) that the annual rates of soil erosion can often range between 20 to over 100 t ha, which results in about 15–30 per cent annual decline in the soil productivity. An estimated loss of about 6 million ha annually is estimated as a result of degradation by erosion and other causes (). The data for these estimates are often selective from small scale studies conducted over short time periods, however, this does draws attention to the increasing problem of soil loss. In the western world the loss in productivity from erosion may be masked or compensated by increased costly and efficient management practices such as improved crop varieties, fertilizer, pesticides, and irrigation. Even under these management practices, soil erosion has continued and sediment loss has become a very costly factor in the overall picture.

Fire is a prevalent disturbance on the global landscape with several hundred million hectares of vegetation burning every year. Land and forest fires (collectively referred to as wildland fires) occur annually on every continent except Antarctica, and most global fire is unmonitored and undocumented (Figure 20.1). Increasing trends in wildland fire activity have been reported in many global regions. Wildland fires have many serious negative impacts on human safety, health, regional economies and global climate change. Developed countries spend billions every year in an attempt to limit the impact of wildland fires. In contrast, developing countries spend little, if any, money to control fire, yet they are often the most susceptible to the damaging impacts of fire because of increased vulnerability of human life and property (due to limited fire suppression capability), increased risk due to high fire frequency (often caused by the cultural use of fire), and sensitive economies (tourism, transport).