Managing the risk of agricultural drought in Africa

Abstract:

Farmers in Africa are highly vulnerable to variability in the weather – especially to drought. Robust and timely information on drought risk can enable farmers to take action to increase yields. Such information also forms the basis of financial instruments, such as weather index insurance. Monitoring weather conditions is, however, difficult in Africa because of the heteorogeneity of the climate, and the sparcity of the ground-observing network. Remotely sensed data (for example satellite-based rainfall estimates) are an alternative to ground observations – but only if the algorithms have skill and the data are presented in a useful form. A more fundamental issue is that the condition of the land surface is affected by factors other than rainfall. The evolving risk of agricultural drought is thus determined by the properties of the land surface, the contemporaneous soil moisture and the risk of rainfall deficits.

We present a prototype agricultural decision support tool, based on the JULES land-surface model, driven with ensembles of meteorological driving data, which encompass the uncertainty in rainfall. We discuss the application of the tool for designing and implementing drought insurance in Ghana and Zambia – illustrated with real examples of weather index insurance schemes that are already active.