J. Lomas et al. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 103 2000 197–208 201
3. Absence of an economic benefit for the application of agricultural meteorological advisories.
Because the private sector is generally not well aware of the benefits of agricultural meteorology, it
is not generally willing to contribute to professional education and training in the discipline.
The current status of education and training of agri- cultural meteorology personnel are discussed in Sec-
tion 4 to examine the major constraints limiting an adequate level and satisfactory quality of agricultural
meteorology personnel.
4. Current status
4.1. Academic institutions Agricultural meteorology as a subject is taught at
the undergraduate level at one university in Africa, the University of the Orange Free State in South Africa.
A number of universities, provide agricultural meteo- rology as a major leading to an M.Sc. degree and at
some universities to a Ph.D. degree.
It is of interest to note that in most of the quoted uni- versities M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in agricultural me-
teorology are in agriculture and not in meteorology or atmospheric sciences. It is, therefore, natural that the
graduates continue their professional activities in the
Fig. 2. Scientific references used by Decker 1994 in his analysis of agrometeorological developments in the US.
field of agriculture and the biological sciences. This can be demonstrated by an analysis of the 80 refer-
ences used in the review of 200 years of the develop- ment of agricultural meteorology in the US Decker,
1994; see Fig. 2. Of course, many of the graduates move on to careers which are not recognised as agri-
cultural meteorology: the influence of their training is then difficult to identify, but it must indirectly provide
a substantial contribution to the development of the discipline.
The dominant contribution to the development of agricultural meteorology comes from agronomy. If one
considers that the scientific reports from the exper- imental stations 20 are mainly from agricultural
faculties of the various universities, the agricultural scientific community contributes 57 of the research
‘effort’, with an input of only 16 from the meteo- rological research community. There are, of course,
exceptions where graduates of meteorology physics and mathematics at the B.Sc. or M.Sc. level have
continued their education in agricultural meteorology at the M.Sc. or Ph.D. level mainly in the field of
soil–plant–atmosphere continuum and environmental physics. A clear approach can be noted in India where
agrometeorology has been accepted as a subject un- der agricultural science by the Indian Council of Agri-
cultural Research and Education ICAR. The council has identified ‘agricultural meteorology’ as a priority
202 J. Lomas et al. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 103 2000 197–208
subject and has encouraged the establishment of sep- arate departments of agricultural meteorology in state
agricultural universities. There are some 8–10 such departments in India and the ICAR is also operating
a National Coordinated Project on agricultural mete- orology in the different state agricultural universities.
An interesting new development in agricultural meteorology has been the concept of cooperation
between African universities and universities of the industrialised world Stigter et al., 1995. The aim
of this so-called Picnic Model for postgraduate edu- cation and training was to strengthen the sustainable
research capacity of African universities Olufayo et al., 1998. The overall agricultural meteorological
field of research and application chosen to test the model was Traditional Techniques of Microclimatic
Improvement TTMI.
The two stage project commenced in 1985 and was completed in 1998. It involved the Agricultural
University of Wageningen, The Netherlands and four universities in Africa, i.e. the University of Nairobi,
Kenya; the University of Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania; the University of Gezira, Sudan and Ahmadu Bello
University, Nigeria. During this period, Ph.D. and M.Sc. degrees have been locally granted. An evalu-
ation workshop was held in Nairobi in 1994 Stigter et al., 1995.
The Picnic Model of research education and train- ing is aimed at research in a student’s home coun-
try but the data analysis and the preparation of the thesis was done at Wageningen Agricultural Univer-
sity. The model exemplifies a cooperative effort in post graduate inter-university research. Its strength
is that the national agricultural problems and needs of the developing countries determine the selection
of research topics. Such an approach strengthens the university department where the research is carried
out and therefore contributes to building human ca- pacity, know-how and inter-departmental cooperation
and world-wide networking, as well as providing ad- ditional research equipment in an environment where
it will be understood and properly used.
Stigter et al. 1995 suggested that some rules have to be followed for viable and sustainable collabora-
tion in research and education. A realistic assessment is essential of the contribution of such an effort to the
national research and training priorities, as well as of the infrastructural carrying capacity of the assisted
university. Finally, the cooperative inter-university programme has from the outset to consider the process
of phasing out the expatriate element and the institu- tionalisation of the research within the framework of
the assisted university. The replacement of external material support has to be given serious consideration.
Indeed, the ultimate objective of strengthening local research and educational capacity has been achieved
only if its utility is so well recognised that it receives adequate local resources to maintain it. Reaching this
state is often slow, and external support of some kind may well be required for a substantial period before
a new group is truly viable.
4.2. In-service training centres In-service training training received from time to
time during the course of employment plays a sig- nificant role in updating National Meteorological and
Hydrological Service NMHS personnel with recent technologies and methods of data acquisition and anal-
ysis and in refreshing the knowledge and skills gained by agricultural meteorology personnel a long time
ago. Numerous in-service training facilities exist at meteorological services for the different levels. Syl-
labi drawn up primarily for meteorology profession- als have been published by WMO and teaching mate-
rial has been published. WMO recognizes 19 Regional Meteorological Training Centres RMTCs which pro-
vide training facilities for member countries in various fields of meteorology, including agricultural meteorol-
ogy and in various languages. WMO RMTCs where agricultural meteorology courses are offered are lo-
cated in Algeria, Argentina, Barbados, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Kenya, Niger, Nigeria
and the Philippines.
There is considerable heterogeneity between the in-service training courses provided by the different
member countries, not only in the syllabus but also in the objective of the training programme and its dura-
tion. For technical personnel agricultural meteorology is usually presented as an applied branch of climatol-
ogy with a 2 or 3 h overview. For graduate personnel there are in-service training facilities at the national
level only in the larger member countries, but they are also found at regional level Ecole Nationale de
la Meteorologie, Toulouse, France; Hydrometeorolog- ical Institute, Odessa, Russia; Indian Meteorological
J. Lomas et al. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 103 2000 197–208 203
Department, Pune, India; RMTC, Bet Dagan, Israel; Institute for Meteorological Training, Nairobi, Kenya.
Syllabi are more uniform and the specialized curric- ula provided by WMO are usually followed. Teaching
material has now been revised and updated and will shortly be published by WMO Wieringa and Lomas,
1998.
A specialized programme of agricultural meteorol- ogy has been developed by the RMTC at Bet-Dagan,
Israel. The training is of relative short duration 4–6 weeks and is at the postgraduate level. Special atten-
tion is paid to the application of meteorology in the farming community and the demonstration of such
Table 1 The training programmes in agricultural meteorology of seven RMTCs
a
Organization Duration
For WMO Entry
Remarks weeks
class requirement
Algerie Inst. Hyd. de formation de recherches
3 II
Introductory Course in Agricultural Meteorology
Egypt RMTC — Cairo
Basic Course in Agricultural Meteorology 26
I I
Course for agricultural meteorological technicians
26 III
III Israel
RMTC — Bet Dagan Annual No. of participants
Agricultural meteorology — Data Base Management 5
I B.Sc.
31 Basic Agricultural Meteorology
6 I
B.Sc. 30
Crop Weather Modeling Specialized course 5
I M.Sc.
29 Kenya
RMTC — Nairobi Meteorology with specialization in
agricultural meteorology 112
I M.Sc. B.Sc. Hons.
With University Nairobi General Meteorology
Course in basic agricultural meteorology 17
Niger Centre Regional Agricultural Meteorology
112 III
Matriculation Specialized observers
Course for agricultural meteorology technicians Nigeria
RMTC — Lagos 164
I Ph.D. M.Sc.
With University of Akure, Ondo State
Meteorology with specialization in agricultural meteorology
Russia RMTC — Kuchino, Moscow
Use of aerospace information in agricultural meteorology
2 I–II
B.Sc., M.Sc. Specialized
a
No statistical information is available of the number of trainees, or the programmes followed.
practices under field conditions. The training pro- gramme has been operational for 30 years with fairly
good results. The training programme provides four specialized courses:
1. Basic Agricultural Meteorology — for beginners; 2. Data Base Management — for agroclimatologists;
3. Modeling in agricultural meteorology — for ad-
vanced professionals; 4. Hydrometeorology — for water resource man-
agers. Table 1 presents a summary of a recently published
WMO, 1997, personal communication. information report on the training programmes of eight RMTCs. In
204 J. Lomas et al. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 103 2000 197–208
seven out of the eight RMTCs agricultural meteorolog- ical training is provided. However, the level of instruc-
tion and the target population is extremely different. Basically four main types of training and education
in agricultural meteorology can be noted in Table 1. 1. Academic instruction in Kenya and Nigeria, lead-
ing to an M.Sc. or Ph.D. degree in Meteorology, with specialization in agricultural meteorology in
cooperation with the Universities; 2. Courses in agricultural meteorology in Egypt, Is-
rael and Kenya, providing a basic background of the interrelationship between climate and agricul-
tural production; 3. Some specialized short duration courses in Algeria
and Russia; 4. Training of agricultural meteorological technicians
as is the case in Egypt and Niger. 4.3. Summary of the current status
From an analysis of the education and training fa- cilities of the academic institutions and the in-service
facilities, the following conclusions can be drawn: 1. Agricultural meteorology is a post graduate subject
at the M.Sc. as well as the Ph.D. level at some academic institutions. One university offers it at the
undergraduate level University of the Orange Free State;
2. Where available the post graduate studies are usu- ally to be found in the Agronomy department of
universities although some universities have it in other departments e.g. Department of Meteorol-
ogy — Reading University, Department of Atmo- spheric sciences — University of Missouri, Depart-
ment of Physics — University of Zimbabwe;
3. The number of graduates studying agricultural me- teorology is small in comparison to other graduate
subjects as the demand for agricultural meteoro- logical scientists is small when compared to other
fields;
4. In-service training facilities provide training of meteorological personnel in agricultural meteorol-
ogy, especially in the larger weather services; 5. Training is extremely heterogeneous and varies
from one country centre to another; 6. At RMTCs, training is provided for academic as
well as technical personnel; 7. Very little instruction in agricultural meteorology
is provided to the agronomy community; thus, the potential user groups of agricultural meteorolog-
ical information lack sufficient understanding of agricultural meteorology in order to make use of
the information provided. This seems clear from a recent survey by the European Commission of 19
countries of Western Europe Wieringa, 1996 and means that we must provide programmes not only
for the specialists in our subject but also for the much wider range of people who must understand
the specialists’ messages in order to act effectively upon them.
5. Constraints in human resource development in agricultural meteorology
