Challenges

Rain-fed agriculture accounts for over 70% of food production in the five targeted communities served by CUT, Free State. There is currently no appropriate drought-forecasting tool for small-scale farmers.

Only a few of them know about services offered by the meteorological departments. They continue to rely on their indigenous knowledge to reach critical cropping decisions. They also find the scientific terminologies used are difficult to translate to their contexts, and they have no access to the media (e.g., TV).

Solutions

This drought early warning system integrates indigenous and scientific drought forecasting that uses a mobile application, a web portal, and SMS service to pool weather information through a network of sensors that monitor weather conditions for smallholder farmers in Mozambique, South Africa, and Kenya.