Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
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H
arnessing Radio and Internet Systems to
in
Rural African Communities
MARION PRATT, MACOL STEWART CERDA,
MOHAMMED BOULAHYA, AND KELLY SPONBERG
[Firs
[276
Line
——
-0.1
——
Norm
PgEn
Humankind has not yet discovered a way to prevent drought entirely.
Hence, the provision of timely and accurate climate and weather infor-
mation can help rural and semiurban producers to better prepare for and
mitigate the effects of insufficient precipitation (IRI, 2001). Communicat-
ing drought information to remote rural populations, however, has been
a major challenge in Africa (Stern and Easterling, 1999). Seasonal rainfall
forecasts, precipitation, and stream flow monitoring products, key envi-
ronmental information, and even lifesaving early warnings are commonly
trapped in the information bottleneck of Africa's capital cities, due to the
relative lack of infrastructure in rural areas (Glantz, 2001). Without ac-
cess to reliable communication networks, the majority of Africa's farmers
and herders are cut off from the scientific and technological advances that
support agricultural decision-making in other parts of the world.
Before the proliferation of radios, cell phones, and televisions, Africans
used local methods—interpreting wind speed and direction, cloud forma-
tions, vegetation, and insect and bird migrations, for example—to predict
weather patterns and the advent or cessation of precipitation. This chap-
ter describes a Radio and Internet (RANET;
http://www.ranetproject.net)
system for communicating drought information to the rural communities
in Niger and Uganda. This system was developed under a disaster mitiga-
tion program funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development
(USAID).
[276
Th
e Origin of the RANET Program
The need for a drought communications system tailored to the realities
of rural Africa was initially communicated to the director of the African
Centre of Meteorological Applications for Development (ACMAD;
http://
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