Focus on African agriculture in 2018

Published on 3 January 2018 by Saskia van Pelt

The new year prospects for new chances in African small-scale agribusiness. The Weather Impact team celebrated the end of the year 2017 in Ethiopia. Together with Wageningen Environmental Research, a workshop on agro-meteo services for small-scale Ethiopian farmers was organised. We came together with 20 Ethiopian meteorological and agronomical experts, to discuss the best methods and partnerships for a reliable and financially sustainable service in Ethiopia. It was decided that the mobile text message with a localized weather forecast, provided in 3 indigenous languages, will be continued in 2018 with at least a doubled number of users.

In Kenya, ten-thousands of farmers will be reached with agro-meteo advisory in the CropMon project. In South-Africa, a Mobile farm-advisory app for extension officers will be released in the context of the R4A project. Furthermore, new projects will start in various African countries.

In March 2018, Weather Impact organises a symposium on “Weather information as success factor in local African agriculture” to celebrate our 3rd anniversary and share the successes with our partners.

The Weather impact team wishes you a healthy and successful 2018!