Experts on climate change take on weatherman for turning a blind eye to farmers' needs

The Kenya Meteorological Department (KMD) has been accused of neglecting the agriculture sector.

Experts on climate change adaptation have challenged KMD to tap into indigenous knowledge on weather prediction to help farmers.

Led by James Kanyangi, the East Africa Regional Facilitator at the International Livestock Research Institute, the experts said poor use of indigenous knowledge on weather prediction is to blame for slow climate adaptation in communities.

"The Met department provides many products for the military, aviation and mining but have neglected the agriculture sector, which is key to the country's economic success. Using indigenous knowledge, they can come up with suitable products for smallholder farmers," said Mr Kanyangi.

"Farmers need to know what type of crops to plant and at what time. Such information is currently not provided by KMD. Scientists have often pushed their knowledge on farmers at the expense of farmers' knowledge," he added.

Kanyangi said traditional weather forecast is still effective for predicting weather and there was need to tap this knowledge to enable farmers effectively adapt to changing climate.

"The knowledge should however be tailored and passed on using local languages to meet the needs of farmers," he said, adding that climate change information was already there but adoption remained low because it had not been packaged to meet farmers' needs.

Recently, experts have accused KMD of using poor systems in their prediction, consequently providing 'inaccurate misleading prediction'.

Director for Strategy Monitoring and Evaluation at the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, David Ameyaw, said there was already deepening vulnerability of smallholder farmers and such knowledge could help them adapt better.