Creating tools for the generation of weather-based crop calendars to support climate services

The UN's 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda sets a crucial target: eradicating hunger, yet progress has been insufficient. According to the FAO, more than 735 million people still suffer from hunger. This issue isn't evenly distributed globally; it hits hardest in less developed nations where agriculture sustains many livelihoods. Weather patterns, climate variations, and climate change all disrupt crop cycles, complicating agricultural planning and production.

To assist farmers, weather-based crop calendars have become invaluable. These calendars utilize historical rainfall data to offer practical insights into optimal planting and harvesting times for various crops and regions. Creating these calendars demands precise rainfall data to pinpoint the start and end of rainy seasons, alongside crop-specific knowledge like drought resistance and growth duration.

Determining the onset and end of the rainy season relies on complex threshold-based methods. These methods analyze accumulated rainfall over multiple days, incorporating additional criteria to avoid false alarms. By fitting this data to probability distributions, climatological expectations for early, normal, and late onsets and cessations of the rainy season are evaluated. The resulting crop calendar aligns early, normal, or late rainy season onsets with optimal sowing dates, while harvest dates are calculated based on sowing dates and crop growth cycles.

In collaboration with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and initiatives like the Climate Risk and Early Warning Systems (CREWS) project in West Africa and the Enhancing Adaptive Capacity of Andean Communities through Climate Services (ENANDES) project in South America, a suite of tools has been developed. Following a comprehensive "from data to service" approach, these tools are accompanied by training events to empower local communities.

This process is exemplified through the utilization of rainfall data from Togo. By integrating meteorological insights into practical agricultural guidance, these initiatives strive to enhance food security and resilience in vulnerable regions. Ultimately, these efforts contribute to the broader mission of achieving the UN's Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger by 2030.