Conviver com os riscos climáticos na agricultura requer pesquisas e políticas de extensão voltadas às necessidades dos produtores

The first necessary change for agrometeorology, in generally lower (external) input parts of agriculture in developing countries, is on research and extension. They have to refocus to preparedness for risks and uncertainties of local farming systems in need of support in four defined directions of prioritization, emphasis depending on the farming system concerned. These are (i) extreme events and their consequences caused by meteorological and climatological disasters on all time scales, including related aversion attempts; (ii) pests and diseases, including countervailing measures; (iii) trying to use beneficial climate and weather and (iv) applications of agrometeorological services. The second necessary change for such agrometeorology is participation of farmers in the establishment of agrometeorological services with well trained intermediaries in such undertakings as Climate Field Schools. The third necessary change is that agrometeorological services should be developed in such a way as to increase the resilience of farmers, in line with further and wider developments to be stimulated in rural areas. The most important and most insecure factors, however, will have to do with the socio-political allies to be supported to create - and keep everywhere - on a large scale the enabling environment. To sole cropping work, to which most response farming advisories were dedicated, if any, multiple cropping agrometeorological services have to be added. They should ideally belong to a new service environment in rural areas in progressing countries.A primeira necessidade de mudança na agrometeorologia, em geral na agricultura dos países em desenvolvimento, é em pesquisa e extensão. Elas devem ser focadas na preparação dos sistemas agrícolas locais para lidar com os riscos e incertezas, de modo a dar suporte em quatro direções de prioridades, com sua ênfase dependendo do sistema agrícola considerado. Estas são: (i) eventos extremos e suas conseqüências causadas por desastres meteorológicos e climatológicos em todas as escalas de tempo; (ii) pragas e doenças, incluindo medidas de compensação; (iii) procurar utilizar de forma benéfica as condições de clima e tempo; e (iv) aplicações dos serviços agrometeorológicos. A segunda mudança necessária para tal agrometeorologia é a participação dos produtores no estabelecimento dos serviços agrometeorológicos com intermediários bem treinados em empreendimentos tais como Escolas de Campo de Climatologia. A terceira mudança necessária é que os serviços agrometeorológicos deveriam ser desenvolvidos de tal forma a aumentar a resilência dos agricultores, de acordo com mudanças posteriores e mais amplas a serem estimuladas em áreas rurais. Os fatores mais importantes e inseguros terão, entretanto, que estar relacionados com os aliados sócio-políticos no sentido de estarem assessorados para criar - e manter em todo lugar - em uma ampla escala, o ambiente apto. Aos monocultivos, aos quais a maioria das recomendações agrícolas foram dedicadas, deve-se adicionar os serviços agrometeorológicos destinados aos cultivos múltiplos. Esses, idealmente, deveriam fazer parte de uma nova política ambiental em áreas rurais de países em desenvolvimento

Questions-Réponses : NTIC, agrométéorologie et agriculteurs

Quelles sont selon vous les apports les plus significatifs des NTIC pour l’étude et la pratique de la météorologie agricole

Transdisciplinary Responses to Climate Change: Institutionalizing Agrometeorological Learning Through Science Field Shops in Indonesia

Science Field Shops (SFSs) are an example of a transdisciplinary educational commitment where farmers, scientists, and extension staff exchange knowledge on agrometeorology in dialogue form to better respond to climate change. How can scientists, farmers, and extension staff build up this transdisciplinary collaboration? How has the agrometeorological learning environment been institutionalized in several places in Indonesia? An interdisciplinary collaboration between agrometeorology and anthropology serves as basis for developing seven climate services that are provided in the SFSs. Through Knowledge Transfer and Communication Technologies, farmers have become active learners, researchers, and decision makers of their own responses to the consequences of climate change. Although such an approach proves efficient in improving the farmers’ knowledge and anticipation capability, the transdisciplinary collaboration with state authority needs to be overhauled to improve the process

Lipoproteins act as vehicles for lipid antigen delivery and activation of invariant natural killer T-cells

Invariant natural killer T (iNKT) cells act at the interface between lipid metabolism and immunity because of their restriction to lipid antigens presented on CD1d by antigen-presenting cells (APCs). How foreign lipid antigens are delivered to APCs remains elusive. Since lipoproteins routinely bind glycosylceramides structurally similar to lipid antigens, we hypothesized that circulating lipoproteins form complexes with foreign lipid antigens. In this study, we used 2-color fluorescence correlation spectroscopy to show, for the first time to our knowledge, stable complex formation of lipid antigens α-galactosylceramide (αGalCer), isoglobotrihexosylceramide, and OCH, a sphingosine-truncated analog of αGalCer, with VLDL and/or LDL in vitro and in vivo. We demonstrate LDL receptor-mediated (LDLR-mediated) uptake of lipoprotein-αGalCer complexes by APCs, leading to potent complex-mediated activation of iNKT cells in vitro and in vivo. Finally, LDLR-mutant PBMCs of patients with familial hypercholesterolemia showed impaired activation and proliferation of iNKT cells upon stimulation, underscoring the relevance of lipoproteins as a lipid antigen delivery system in humans. Taken together, circulating lipoproteins form complexes with lipid antigens to facilitate their transport and uptake by APCs, leading to enhanced iNKT cell activation. This study thereby reveals a potentially novel mechanism of lipid antigen delivery to APCs and provides further insight into the immunological capacities of circulating lipoproteins

Agrometeorological Learning Increasing Farmers' Knowledge in Coping with Climate Change and Unusual Risks

Enriching farmers' knowledge of the risks and consequences of climate change is the most promising strategy to better assist them. Nevertheless, we have to bear in mind that people filter and absorb scientific knowledge through pre-existing cultural models and aspirations for desired outcomes. The severe pest/disease outbreaks during the La-Niña periods of 2009 and 2010/2011, and the unpreparedness of farmers in many places in Java, was a timely opportunity for many parties to reflect seriously on the deficiencies in our approaches and facilitations. Our inter-disciplinary collaboration proved successful in strengthening and enriching farmers' knowledge by bringing agrometeorological thinking and knowledge, based on scientific ideas, premises, and methods, to local people who had their own "ethnoscience." This benefits farmers over an extended period and until the public extension intermediaries have been sufficiently trained. Our suggestions are: assisting farmers to discover their own vulnerability issues through continuous dialogues and knowledge exchange in "Science/Climate Field Shops," and the measurement of rainfall and the observation of weather and climate implications for fields and crops in a standardized way as the basis of an improved Climate Field School. To that end the training of public extension intermediaries is necessary