Keywords

Introduction: Education and Capacity Building

Climate change as an environmental disaster, upsetting among others all farming communities, must be considered through its three sides from where the danger comes: (i) global warming; (ii) increasing climate variability; (iii) more (and often more severe) weather and climate extreme events (Stigter and Ofori 2014a). Experience in and development of doing so, must be transferred via new educational and capacity building commitments, among others in agrometeorology and agroclimatology (Stigter 2011). RSs are one way to do this very explicitly related to farmers’ livelihoods (Stigter 2006a, 2015a, b).

This paper wants to review the need for and the contents of these RSs and it reports on their local evaluation by the institutes that were involved. The approach developed emphasizes that applied agrometeorology should not start with agrometeorology but with the conditions of where it should be applied, the livelihoods of farmers (Stigter 2010, 2015a, b). In the development of such RSs elsewhere, our experience could be of much value.

RSs in the form of very limited single “farmer days” were held by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) since 2008, but they were never evaluated (Tall et al. 2014). Farmers have valuable traditional and more recent empirical knowledge but are unfamiliar with much new environmental knowledge. Our experience in Indonesia (e.g. Winarto and Stigter 2011; Stigter et al. 2013) learns that long periods of regular contacts have to be organized to get this new knowledge understood and applied. Farmers need strong support in this agrometeorological learning process.

This means that the new knowledge must first and for all go to university staff, professional agrometeorologists and extension intermediaries in (rural) supporting organizations. This was also the idea behind the author’s book “Applied Agrometeorology” (Stigter 2010), of which parts are strongly related to the contents of the first two RSs dealt with below. These RSs are at a level that trainers of extension intermediaries would particularly benefit because the material shows what can be offered that can reach and change the livelihoods of farmers and how.

Adopting a new approach, since 2005, the authors’ one man consultancy bureau “Agromet Vision” has developed and delivered RSs of 2–5 days with local evaluations. To date, Agromet Vision has delivered 37 RSs in 13 countries (including four trials and three mixes). The first two subjects were “Agrometeorological Services: Theory and Practice” and “Agrometeorology and Sustainable Development”. The complete list of which RSs were held where and when is in Table 13.1. This includes from 2011 onwards a third Roving Seminar “Extension Agrometeorology”, with material that was partly derived from the former two and partly from additional sources, developed for training extension intermediaries in Iran and delivered twice so far. In 2011 also the RS “Reaching Farmers in a Changing Climate” was added, while there are two more recently developed RSs as well that have been started in 2013 (What Climate Change Means for Farmers in Africa) and 2015 (Agrometeorology and Climate Change) respectively (Table 13.1).

Table 13.1 Agromet Vision Roving Seminars (chronologically for each seminar)
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The conceptual framework was given by Stigter (2006b, 2007a, 2008) where he defined, between the two domains of (i) farmers’ livelihoods and (ii) the scientific support systems of available knowledge and understanding, a third domain in which applied scientists, product intermediaries and farmer facilitators work on solutions of agricultural production problems as suffered by farmers. In this domain of the use of products of for example applied agrometeorology and climatology, these products are jointly made operational for establishment as climate services with farmers in their fields (Stigter 2007b, c). The extension behind these processes was described in Stigter and Winarto (2013) and Stigter et al. (2013). The Roving Seminars deal for their audience with describing the conditions under which science can be used that way, from the point of view of making applied science operational and from the angle of farmers’ livelihood and its conditions that determine absorption and use of services as well as blending of the new knowledge with their traditional knowledge (e.g. Stigter et al. 2005; Zuma-Netshiukhwi et al. 2013). The RSs make use of a lot of case studies that illustrate difficulties with, consequences of and successes with these approaches.

This paper provides an overview of the “Agromet Vision” RS series. The early RSs, with a focus on agrometeorological services and development, are first briefly reviewed before discussing the more recent training that focuses on adapting to climate change. Experience with such knowledge transfer will be particularly of use in training of extension officers everywhere in Africa, Asia and Latin America in developing and establishing similar education and capacity building programmes.

All RSs, when given in 4 or 5 days, train their audience in discussions in small groups to answer specific questions after each presentation. The audience is distributed over groups of four to six participants and each group discusses the same questions. Then, in a plenary reporting on the proposed answers, conclusions are drawn on establishing services with farmers in their fields and problem solving in their livelihoods. It is our intention that these extra-curricular efforts to participate in the RSs bring applied science and its products much closer to problem solving with smallholders. Whether the audiences are related to extension training or to extension policy and practice issues in ministries, institutes and/or organizations, the local evaluations learn that reaching farmers is considered more within one’s power than before the RSs.

Early Agrometeorological Roving Seminars

Applied agrometeorology/agroclimatology started to focus on traditional knowledge and climate services in agriculture in the last two decades of the twentieth century (Stigter 2006a). The Commission of Agricultural Meteorology (CAgM) of the WMO became instrumental in advocating capacity building in these directions (WMO 2006). The first RS was for the first time given as a Training Course in November 2005 in Tehran, Iran (Table 13.1). Table 13.2 shortly hints at the composition of its presentations. See Rahimi (2005) for a report and evaluation. The history of its development was given in Stigter (2015a), where also the literature supporting its presentations was reviewed.

Table 13.2 Overview of Roving Seminar 1 “Agrometeorological Services: Theory and Practice” (Stigter 2006a, 2015a)
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The second RS was given for the first time in a Provincial Workshop in the same month in Gorgan, Iran (Table 13.1). Table 13.3 hints again at the composition of its presentations. See Asadi (2005) for a report and evaluation. The history of its development was given in Stigter (2015b), where also the literature supporting its presentations was reviewed.

Table 13.3 Overview of Roving Seminar 2 “Agrometeorology and Sustainable Development” (Stigter 2006a, 2015b)
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The conclusions on the above early “Agromet Vision” RSs in local evaluations have been that these RSs as educational commitments were suitable to get extension planners and trainers aware of the necessities of further establishment and use of climate services for agriculture (e.g. Kadi et al. 2011; Stigter 2011; Tall et al. 2014; WMO 2015). This was making use of policy trends of improved services climates in rural areas for which funds appear to become available, at least in some countries (e.g. Donnges 2003). Particularly due to the sufferings related to climate change, both background RSs had relevancy to all emerging countries (Stigter 2008, 2010, 2011; Stigter et al. 2007). However, during RS question and discussion periods, gradually the need was expressed for an agrometeorological/-climatological extension approach more directly related to adaptation to climate change in a second set of RSs to be developed (e.g. Winarto et al. 2008, 2010; Stigter 2011).

Roving Seminars Focused on Climate Change

In many countries or regions of Africa, Asia and Latin America, agriculture is still the backbone of societies, economically and in creating work. Climate change hits these production areas hard (e.g. Stigter 2010, 2011) and this creates new livelihood conditions in which climate services for agriculture need a new approach (Stigter et al. 2014a, b, c, 2015). Because of this and the above mentioned developments, the early RSs gradually got company from new RSs from 2011 till 2015 that were even more directly related to the needs for adaptations to climate change.

Reaching Farmers in a Changing Climate

Our early work on awareness raising and resilience improvement related to climate change with (largely female) farmers in Gunungkidul, Indonesia (e.g. Winarto et al. 2008, 2010, 2011; Winarto and Stigter 2011; Stigter and Winarto 2012a, b, c; Stigter 2012), added a strong extension flavor to the new RS “Reaching farmers in a changing climate”. The target groups are the same as for the earlier Seminars, for the same reasons of existing extension needs as explained there, and it is again not country-specific. There is more emphasis on extension agrometeorology. Stigter and Winarto (2012c) pictured extension agrometeorology as a contribution to sustainable development and defined it as agrometeorology that attends to (i) local suffering from weather and climate and persistent ways to diminish it, and (ii) windows of opportunity that (micro)climate offers “on farm”. Because this fourth RS (Table 13.1) is still currently delivered, we have given the information on the contents of this RS below in a somewhat more extensive form (Table 13.4) than that of Tables 13.2 and 13.3.

Table 13.4 Some representative conclusions/recommendations in presentations of the Roving Seminar “Reaching Farmers in a Changing Climate”
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What Climate Change Means for Farmers in Africa

An even more recent RS (5, Table 13.1) is based on three recent papers (Stigter and Ofori 2014a, b, c), runs since 2013 and has only been given three times as yet (Table 13.1). It was developed specifically for Africa (Table 13.5).

Table 13.5 Some representative conclusions/recommendations in presentations of the Roving Seminar “What Climate Change Means for Farmers in Africa: Facts, Impacts/Consequences and Possible Approaches Towards Adaptation”
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Three times is only a start. Several countries are in the programme outlook for the coming years. So far invariably the reaction has been that the future looked much worse than the audience expected. The author recently participated in a meeting in Nairobi of the Food Security, Agriculture and Land Section of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) with a group of scientists of the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) working on a new book on “Farming systems and food security in Africa: Priorities for science and policy under global change”. It appears that many of such farming systems have trees that particularly combine protective and productive functions (e.g. Stigter 2015c). Knowing of these trends I last year produced the latest RS as below.

Agroforestry and Climate Change

Most recently a new RS (6, Table 13.1), “Agroforestry and climate change”, was developed, based on Stigter (2015c), and tried out and then fully delivered in Khartoum (Sudan) in February 2015 and in Harare (Zimbabwe) in March 2015 (Table 13.1). Because this RS is based on a book chapter not yet published, although I handled the printing proofs, and was so far only given in 2 days RSs, Table 13.6 takes again the abbreviated form of the Tables 13.2 and 13.3.

Table 13.6 Overview of Roving Seminar 6 “Agroforestry and Climate Change” (Stigter 2015c)
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Conclusions

Ten years of RSs organized by “Agromet Vision” for various Universities, Institutes and Organizations appear to be a recommendable training of trainers of extension intermediaries or farmers in agrometeorology and -climatology, in which long term contacts with trainers of farmers and farmers themselves is promoted. Climate services for agriculture of many kinds have been exemplified and the trainers have been comforted in their attempts to establish these services with farmers in their fields. Many examples of (agro)meteorological and (agro)climatological products have been defined and discussed for operational use by farmers under conditions of a changing climate. The future is in expansion of such approaches, but existing extension systems need to be completely overhauled and new systems need to be developed.