Preliminary assessment of the use of participatory integrated climate services for agriculture (PICSA) approach

by farmers to manage climate risk in Senegal and Mali

4th Global Science Conference on Climate Smart AgricultureJohannesburg, South Africa; 28-30 November 2017

Dayamba S. Djibril, Ky-Dembele Catherine, Bayala Jules, Dorward Peter, Sanogo Diaminatou, Diop Lamine,Traoré Issa, Diakité Adama, Graham Clarkson, Andree Nenkam, Ouedraogo Mathieu, Zougmore Robert

Presentation outline Introduction / Context

Participatory Integrated Climate Services for Agriculture (PICSA)

Implementation of PICSA in Senegal and Mali

Results and discussions

Lessons learnt, constraints and perspectives

Introduction / Context

Challenges of the livelihood-agricsystems (including climate-related ones)

Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA): the pillars

Taking CSA to scale: requiredevidences - approaches

The CCAFS CSV-AR4D approach:components – CIS and farmers knowledge are key

CIS – seasonal forecasts – important in planninglivelihoods/productions activities

Carte 4 : Août-Septembre-octobre 2015

Issue of:-relevance at local scales-understanding by extension staffs / farmers

CIS – Participatory Integrated Climate Services for Agriculture (PICSA)

developed and tested by the University of Reading

1. Providing and considering climate andweather information with farmers - includinghistorical records and forecasts

2. The joint analysis of information oncrop, livelihood and livestock options andtheir risks, by field staff and farmers

3. Participatory tools to enable farmers touse this information in planning anddecision making for their individualcircumstances

PICSA: Key components

Long Before the Season

Historical Climate Data

sans sequence seches (10 jours dans 21)

gfedcb

Premiere date pour le semi

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2010

2000

1990

1980

1970

1960

1950

1940

1930

13 Jul

28 Jun

13 Jun

29 May

14 May

29 Apr

During the Season

Short-termForecasts & Warnings

Just Before the Season

Seasonal Forecast & Revise

Plans

Participatory Planning

Shortly After the Season

Review weather, production, forecasts &

processCrop + Livestock

Options

PICSA: Season-wide approach

PICSA steps and phases

Long before the season,

Calculate simple probabilities/risksof occurrence of climate events(given amount of rainfall, start andend dates of the rainy season, etc.)which are discussed with farmers incombination with various livelihoodoptions

Discussion on historical records - improveunderstanding of seasonal forecastsinformation: it puts locally relevantfigures on qualitative words (belownormal, normal, above normal, etc.)

STATION METEO DE MOPTI DATE DE DEBUT DE LA SAISON DES PLUIES

NB : Après le 1er mai, 20mm de pluie en 3 jours consécutifs sans période sèches de 10 jours dans les 30 jours qui suivent Source : MALI-METEO

20 juin 20 juin

STATION METEO DE MOPTI TERCILES PLUVIOMETRIQUES

EXCENDENTAIRE

NORMALE

DEFICITAIRE

NB : le classement de la série historique Source : MALI-METEO

PICSA: Season-wide approach

Overview of the PICSA approach

Chosing options basedon the previous step

Adaptplans

Adaptplans

MONITORING AND EVALUATION

Ex: 1/5 - once everyfive years

Choice:Number of options

The case studies

Mali: villages of Kouna, Allaye Daga and Youre in the commune of Sio in the Mopti region

Senegal: villages of Ngouye and Daga-Birame in the Kaffrine region: Climate-Smart village sites

Kaffrine, Senegal Mopti, Mali

Characteristics Male Female Male Female

Number of participants 19 21 32 13

Average age (years) 46 38.1 49 52

Average land size (ha) 6.22 4.95 8 3

Literacy in local language 0 9 14 1

Literacy in Arabic 1 5 0 0

No education 1 1 1 3

Koranic school 16 4 15 5

Primary school 0 2 1 4

Secondary school 1 0 0 0

Household size 6.79 6.33 17 13

Sites and characteristics of sampled farmers/households in Mali and Senegal

Rolling out PICSA: a number of meetings with farmers (timing andvenue agreed)

Monitoring:

❖Perception on the usefulness of PICSA: 5-point Likert scale, i.e.not useful (1), of little use (2), useful (3), very useful (4) andextremely useful (5)

❖Changes in farmers’ decisions that could be attributed to PICSA

❖Farmer-to-farmer extension: number of fellow farmers withwhom ideas/information were shared

Rolling-out PICSA and data collection

Farmers’ perception on the usefulness of the PICSA approach

After end of season

0.010.020.030.040.050.060.070.080.090.0

100.0

Notuseful

Of littleuse

Useful Veryuseful

Extremelyuseful

Pro

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ICSA

(%

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Mali (b)N = 45

Women Men

0102030405060708090

100

Not useful Of littleuse

Useful Very useful Extremelyuseful

Pro

po

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f p

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ICSA

(%

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Senegal (a)N = 40

Women Men

0 2 4 6 8

Historical climate information

Seasonal forecast

Seasonal calendar

Panel C1: first order impressions of women in Mopti, Mali

0 5 10 15

Historical climate information

Seasonal forecast

Seasonal calendar

Participatory budget

Panel D1: first order impressions of men in Mopti, Mali

0 1 2 3

Seasonal forecast

Historical climate information

Participatory budget

Panel C2: 2nd order impressions of women in Mopti, Mali

0 2 4 6 8 10

Historical climate information

Seasonal forecast

Participatory budget

Seasonal calendar

Resource allocation map

Panel D2: 2nd order impressions of men in Mopti, Mali

Number of farmers Number of farmers

Aspects of PICSA identified as most useful to farmers in the sites in Mali

Aspects of PICSA identified as most useful to farmers in the sites in Senegal

Select agricultural options ✓ adapted crops/varieties,✓ soil/water management (earth/ stones bunding, zaï pits)✓ fertilization options / composting/preparing manure,✓ farmers managed natural regeneration-FMNR)

Thinking of the necessity to diversify production;

Inventorying/reviewing activities throughout the season and their costs;✓ Considering the cost effectiveness of the activities,

Careful planning / timing of activities/operations (weeding, fertilizers application and harvest)

✓ Site selection

Matching activities to available resources (for instance, reduction of crop land area)

Major changes

198209

156

351

9 11 12 11

0

50

100

150

200

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350

400

women Men women Men

Site in Senegal Site in Senegal Site in Mali Site in Mali

Nu

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Number of farmers reached through farmer to farmer extension

Total number of farmers reached Average number of farmers reached

Farmer-to-farmer extension

LessonsPICSA stimulated farmers to consider and then implement a range of

innovations;✓ PICSA combines a new way of doing extension / communicating with farmers +

includes climate information as part of it.✓ Supporting farmers to make their own choices and decisions and giving them the

tools and information to do this

Led to demand from farmers for other services and information associatedwith the innovations and to connecting farmers with technical andfinancial institutions

potential to improve the relationship between farmers and extension and open opportunities for further interactions

PICSA tools: Most of them easily understandable by farmers but somedraw more attention: historical records graphs on rainfall amount, thelength of the season, the start and end of the season

PICSA can go to much bigger scale in countries (after pilots like these) andneeds to be contextualized regarding CSA and other options, and climateinformation, for different environments

Lessons learnt, challenges and perspectives

Lessons learnt, challenges and perspectivesChallenges for the approach

➢ Time required for the training and follow up;(might refrain development organizations to support – needed anyway)

➢ High turnover of the personnel both for the government extension andNGO staffs;

➢ Extension staffs (key for the approach) is being downsized in most places;

➢ Lack of historical climate records due to the poor coverage of mostSahelian countries in term of climate information recording devices /automatic weather stations

opportunities with Enhancing National Climate Services (ENACTS) or other initiatives

➢ Methodological issue to assess the impact of the use of CI at communityand landscape scales

Perspectives (for scaling up)

Improve documentation of the effectiveness of the approach to fine-tuneevidences (possibily of quantifying effect, etc. );

Seek effective ways to put farmer-to-farmer extension into play to reachbig number (go to scale) effectively and efficiently;

Synthesis and guidelines that can be used by trainers to take this beyondthe sites (work being done)

Mainstream the findings and knowledge generated into national andregional programs/projects – case with WAAPP

CaSCIERA project recently launched by ICRAF with partners (CCAFS, AGRHYMET, NARS-

Meteo of Benin, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Togo)

Lessons learnt, challenges and perspectives

Thank you for your attention