All weather is local - getting the forecasting right for farmers
ZVISHAVANE/MASVINGO/CHIVI: With the lean season reaching its peak, many villages in Zimbabwe have already exhausted their staple grain reserves.
Hard to say when the rains might fall; clouds over Chivi district in Zimbabwe's Masvingo province. Photo: Jaspreet Kindra/IRIN
The most recent Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee (ZimVAC) report projects that at least two million people, out of a population of 13 million, will be without sufficient food until the end of March. But had they had access to high-quality rain forecasts for their areas, communities could have better prepared for the period between harvests, experts say.
Lack of information about the rains is a common problem in Africa, one expected to grow more serious as the climate changes, making weather patterns more erratic and making the need for micro-level information even more imperative.
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