Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 103 2000 59–72
Agrometeorological aspects of agriculture in the sub-humid and humid zones of Africa and Asia
Shrikant S. Jagtap
a ,∗
, Ah Kee Chan
b
a
Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, FL 32611-0570, USA
b
Malaysian Meteorological Service, 46200 Petaling Jaya Selangor DE, Malaysia
Abstract
Entire sub-Saharan Africa and pockets of Asian population is at risk of starvation. The problems and possibilities are however quite different amongst the two regions. Africa with its less than 8 of land irrigated, 3 or more population growth
rate, continues to practice only rudimentary, nonscientific form of agriculture. In Asia where input use is high, farmers are approaching economically optimum yield levels, making it difficult to sustain the same rate of yield gains. While efforts to
improve long-term productivity on small scale farm must be accelerated, more emphasis must also be placed on research that will help farmers and governments better cope with expected increases in risks resulting from climatic fluctuations, use of
limited water resources, poor market integration and other problems. Finally we believe that all appropriate scientific tools including advanced weather forecasting, information technologies such as models, decisions tools should be mobilized to
help solve the problems facing small-scale farmers in developing countries. Due to lack of financial support, the network of meteorological stations do not adequately cover various agrometeorological zones to meet user needs. The general lack
of confidence in the reliability of weather forecasts has caused farmers not trust and use the weather forecasts. Training opportunities for meteorological services staff in the use of modern tools like computer simulation modeling, remote sensing,
geographic information systems as well as electronic instrumentation is needed. © 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Agriculture; Climate; Food security; Early warning; Needs; Opportunities
1. Ecological and economic setting
Africa and Asia each consist of four major agroe- cologies Fig. 1. They are the arid and semi-arid
zone, the subsumed or moist savanna zone and the humid zone. Most economies and peoples depend on
semi-subsistence agriculture. Farming practices have developed as a response to environmental dictates,
especially agroclimatic factors, type and intensity of
∗
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-352-392-7719; fax: +1-352-392-4092.
E-mail address: sjagtapagen.ufl.edu S.S. Jagtap
production, and human interventions aimed at spread- ing risks through diversification of resource use.
The movement of inter tropical convergence zone dominates African climatology, while most of Asia
generally comes under the influence of monsoon. Depending on their intensity and the location, floods
or droughts can occur. These areas are also affected by El-NinoLa-Nina events. These events could ei-
ther enhance or reduce precipitation significantly. The fluctuations of rainfall are therefore a common
characteristic of the areas. Since irrigation is either not practised at all or in primitive form, most farm-
ers are unusually vulnerable to economic impacts of
0168-192300 – see front matter © 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 1 6 8 - 1 9 2 3 0 0 0 0 1 1 7 - 9
60 S.S. Jagtap, A.K. Chan Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 103 2000 59–72
Fig. 1. The arid, sub-humid and humid zones of Africa and Asia.
climatic fluctuations. These problems may become more severe in the fragile ecosystems of Sub-Saharan
Africa SSA if changes in the global climate occur as projected by the world’s leading atmospheric and
oceanic scientists IPCC, 1990.
Most cultures employ only rudimentary, nonscien- tific means of predicting and responding to large fluc-
tuations in rainfall Davies, 1969. Forecasts of the onset and duration of rains in West Africa could be sig-
nificantly improved by linking them to global phenom- ena such as ENSO Many different interventions have
been tried across the continent with varying degrees of success. Food security is expected to diminish rapidly
in East Asia and to a lesser extent in South Asia, but it could accelerate substantially in SSA and West
Asia. SSA and South Asia, home to a projected 70 of the world’s food insecure people in 2010, will be
focus of hunger in the developing world. Almost 40 of people in SSA will be food insecure and will have
barely enough quantity of daily calorie allowance. Much of the population increase is expected in cities,
thus profoundly affecting dietary and food demands. Diets are expected to shift from basic staples such as
sorghum, millet and maize to other cereals such as rice and wheat that require less preparation; and milk
and livestock products, fruits and vegetables, and pro- cessed foods. Among the major developing regions,
SSA is expected to experience the largest percentage increase in demand for all major food commodities.
In order to increase food production and enhance the impact of agricultural research for farmers, there is
need to better understand the factors underlying short- and long-term global climatic behavior and to pay
explicit attention to agroecological characterization, climatic variability, and long term climatic trends in
agricultural research planning and resource allocation.
Most of the land on these continents, classified as very suitable for cultivation, is already cultivated
FAO, 1996. Particularly in Asia, existing agriculture land is being converted for other uses. Consequently,
if deleterious environmental effects of agricultural expansion onto marginal lands are to be minimized,
the increasing demand for food must be met largely by productivity gains rather than at the margin. Thus,
the imperatives of prudent and efficient resource use are likely to drive agricultural intensification. Under
human and livestock population pressure, traditional farming systems of SSA are breaking down. In the
S.S. Jagtap, A.K. Chan Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 103 2000 59–72 61
highlands, for example, there is little or no opportu- nity to fallow lands. Also, as agriculture is progres-
sively transformed from the traditional, extensive fal- low systems to continuous cropping, yields of crops
and land productivity decline and sustainability is threatened. Intensification can be accelerated through
research, which could consider socio-economic, nat- ural resource, technical and institutional factors that
influence productivity and sustainability. Ecological and economic sustainability can be achieved when
the natural resources of land, crops, animals and wa- ter are used to reinforce each other. However, holistic
research on production systems in the region is weak partly due to lack of base line data, suitable method-
ology to measure benefits, shortages of qualified personnel, and institutional infrastructure.
2. Africa
