Jamaica’s Drought tool METEOROLOGICAL SERVICE, JAMAICA Jamaica’s Drought tool This template can be used as a starter file for presenting training materials in a group setting. Sections Right-click on a slide to add sections. Sections can help to organize your slides or facilitate collaboration between multiple authors. Notes Use the Notes section for delivery notes or to provide additional details for the audience. View these notes in Presentation View during your presentation. Keep in mind the font size (important for accessibility, visibility, videotaping, and online production) Coordinated colors Pay particular attention to the graphs, charts, and text boxes. Consider that attendees will print in black and white or grayscale. Run a test print to make sure your colors work when printed in pure black and white and grayscale. Graphics, tables, and graphs Keep it simple: If possible, use consistent, non-distracting styles and colors. Label all graphs and tables. Glenroy Brown 10th May 2017

Acknowledge Our Champions JMS RADA CIMH IRI USAID

PROBLEM…. Local Context Jamaica’s agricultural sector accounts about 7% of the island’s GDP and employs about 20% of the workforce. Agriculture in Jamaica is largely rain-fed (94%) especially for small farmers. Changes in rainfall pattern. Forecast for longer and more frequent droughts by 2050.

Forecast demonstrate the requisite skills needed for delivering trustworthy and reliable forecast skill So embarked on several forums. These were mainly through farmers forums, where we sensitize the farmers on how to interpret the forecast as well as how to use the data to make better farming decisions. Bottom Up Approach

LIFE WITHOUT THE DROUGHT TOOL NOT ABLE TO SEE THINGS CLEARLY

LIFE WITH THE DROUGHT TOOL SEE THINGS A LITTLE BIT CLEARER

Our Approach to delivering the best Drought Tool Threat of Climate Change demands a more thorough approach in providing climate services. We build on our experiences in providing weather and climate information to create customized services, like the drought tool, targeted at specific users. In this way, the Drought Tool make it possible to incorporate science-based information into policies and practice to achieve real benefits for our stakeholders (farmers). Climate variability and change are posing significant challenges to societies worldwide. Timely communication of climate information helps prevent the economic setbacks and humanitarian disasters that can result from climate extremes and long term climate change. This can be done through the development of robust climate services, which is the dissemination of climate information to the public or a specific user. These services involve developing strong partnerships among providers, such as NMHSs, and stakeholders, including government agencies, private interests, and academia, for the purpose of interpreting and applying climate information for decision making, sustainable development, and improving climate information products, predictions, and outlooks. Example-climate forecasting can assist the agriculture sector in understanding how particular climate conditions could affect productivity

RESPONSE Effective – Providing drought information at the community levels Efficient – Providing timely drought information to inform decision making Essential – Develop a drought tool that is absolutely necessary and extremely important to the end users, (farmers)

How Did the Met Office Respond In 2014 the Jamaica Meteorological Service together with Rural Agriculture Development Agency (RADA) developed a drought tool that is now been used to officially declared drought across island. 2014, we also trained experts from across the region through Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH) Real time Weather Forecast give you weather forecast for most communities across the island.

Seasonal Drought Forecast (SPI) Give a brief overview of the current drought conditions across the island. Where red indicates drought and blue signifies wet areas. http://jamaicaclimate.net

Seasonal Drought Forecast (3D Map) Give a brief overview of the current drought conditions across the island. Where red indicates drought and blue signifies wet areas. http://jamaicaclimate.net

FREE SMS DROUGHT ALERT (For all farmers in our database) We realize that many of our user especially our farmers will not be able to access the report due to lack of internet. Therefore we develop a free SMS text message system to send the drought information to our users who don’t have access to the internet. We realize that many of our user especially our farmers will not be able to access the report due to lack of internet. Therefore we develop a free SMS text message system to send the report to our users without internet access but who have a mobile phone to received the weather information.

Impact of the Drought 2013 production 2014 production 2014 production, farmers with climate risk 2014 production, farmers with climate risk, farmer forum only 2014 production, farmers with climate risk, farmer forum + text message

Take Away Message The Met Office will continue to be a champion for climate service in Jamaica and the region. Will continue to work with the farming communities to reduce the impacts of climate change on the sector by developing more climate smart early warning tools. Our products are email to key persons on a monthly basis, however the information is readily available on our web portals listed above.