A strengthening El Niño and new disruptions to fertilizer markets are putting food systems under pressure, and both threats can be seen coming well before their full effects arrive. Yet knowing a crisis is coming does not mean farmers get the information, resources or support to prepare, CGIAR says. That gap was the subject of a session at the COP31 Food & Agriculture Pavilion in Antalya on 11 November, which also launched a new report, The State of Early Warning Around the World.
The report, introduced by Giriraj Amarnath, a principal researcher at the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), takes stock of early warning systems and the gaps that limit them. It argues for looking beyond single threats: a drought may come with rising food prices or broken supplies of farm inputs, leaving communities exposed to pressures that warning systems are not built to handle together. Forecasts may be increasingly sophisticated, it says, but they are worth little unless they reach the right institutions in time, and unless financing is arranged before a shock rather than after the damage starts.
Amarnath used El Niño as the example. Seasonal forecasts can give several months of notice to adjust planting calendars, farmer advisories and resources, but only if the information gets into those decisions. He presented CGIAR's ENSO Outlook as one way of making climate forecasts more useful for food systems.
CGIAR Executive Managing Director Ismahane Elouafi pointed to Ethiopia, where CGIAR scientists and national partners ran more than 2,700 on-farm trials to build fertilizer recommendations suited to local soils, evidence that helps farmers make better use of scarce fertilizer and gives national systems a lasting basis for advice.
In a panel moderated by Todd Rosenstock, director of the CGIAR Climate Action Program, Dutch Vice Minister Steven Collet asked why resilience funds at development banks were still slow to move when risks could be seen ahead of time. Laouali Garba of the African Development Bank said emergency facilities can get certified seed and fertilizer to farmers in a crisis, but countries also need lasting seed systems, and that land restoration attracts more support when it also strengthens production and small businesses. Laurence Jassogne of Olam Agri said the value of soil health was already clear to the trader, but scaling beyond pilots needs partners across a landscape, data and market demand.
The lesson CGIAR draws from the session: the months of notice an El Niño forecast gives can be eaten up by designing farmer advice, assembling partners and shaping fundable projects, so that work has to be done before the shock.
The article was published by CGIAR Climate Action.
Source: CGIAR
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