Managing Climatic Risks to Combat Land Degradation and Enhance Food security: Key Information Needs

This paper discusses the key information needs to reduce the negative impacts of weather variability and climate change on land degradation and food security, and identifies the opportunities and barriers between the information and services needed. It suggests that vulnerability assessments based on a livelihood concept that includes climate information and key socio-economic variables can overcome the narrow focus of common one-dimensional vulnerability studies. Both current and future climatic risks can be managed better if there is appropriate policy and institutional support together with technological interventions to address the complexities of multiple risks that agriculture has to face. This would require effective partnerships among agencies dealing with meteorological and hydrological services, agricultural research, land degradation and food security issues. In addition a state-of-the-art infrastructure to measure, record, store and disseminate data on weather variables, and access to weather and seasonal climate forecasts at desired spatial and temporal scales would be needed

Editorial

Decision-making in agricultural production is a complex process in which many risks need to be considered for an informed decision to be made. In many parts of the world, weather and climate are one of the biggest production risks and uncertainty factors impacting on agricultural systems performance and management. Farmers around the world, especially those in the developing countries, have been trying to adapt to the variable weather and climate conditions through various risk-management strategies. Improved weather and climate information, supplied to the farming community in a timely manner, can greatly assist the farmers in their operational decisions