Climate Information Services for Generating Operational Cropping Calendars

DESCRIPTION: Increasing unpredictability of farming conditions due to climate change/variability increases risks to crop production. Therefore, adjusting the cropping calendar is an important strategy to adapt to inter-annual climate variability. Unlike traditional cropping calendars, dynamic cropping calendars directly link to seasonal/sub-seasonal forecast to support risk management and crop production for minimum yield loss. This project focused on 5 vulnerable and major rice and corn production areas in the Philippines.

As a contribution to a project “Development of an Enhanced Production and Risk Management in Agriculture Integrated Decision Support System” led by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) - Philippines, the International Research Institute for Climate & Society contributed to develop a tool for developing dynamic cropping calendars for selected regions in the Philippines.

OUTCOMES: IRI developed a tool/graphical user-interface to take seasonal climate forecast and producce predicted yields for different planting windows. This tool helps farmers/agricultural advisors find optimal planting window given seasonal climate forecasts