World Meteorological Organization and Agricultural Droughts - Monitoring and Predicting Agricultural Drought: A Global Study - page 406

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Some examples to illustrate the use of El Niño predictions to provide
early warnings include: (1) the case of Peru, where the El Niño information
has been used for sustainable agricultural production through the alterna-
tion of crops (e.g., rice and cotton) during dry years; and (2) in Brazil, agri-
cultural production was enhanced when El Niño information was used in
making specific agricultural decisions in 1992 and 1987 when the El Niño
event took place.
An important component of the CLIPS project is in the area of training
and technology transfer. The objective is to ensure that NMHS have access
to the regional and global climate monitoring products ( www.wmo.ch/web
/wcp/clips2001/html/index.html) that are routinely generated in support of
WRCP and that NMHS staff has the necessary training to provide services
to aid community decision-making. The CLIPS project is closely linked to
the WMO Agricultural Meteorology and Hydrology and Water Resources
programs to build on existing linkages with community managers in the
land and water resource areas.

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A grometeorological Applications

Major meteorological events such as extended droughts have made high-
level government planners in many countries aware of the importance of
timely and practical agrometeorological information. Drought monitoring,
forecasting, and control have been receiving a high priority in many agen-
cies. The purpose of the Agricultural Meteorology Programme (AGMP) of
WMO is to support food and agricultural production and activities. The
program assists members by providing meteorological and related services
to the agricultural community to help develop sustainable and economi-
cally viable agricultural systems, improve production and quality, reduce
losses and risks, decrease costs, increase efficiency in the use of water, la-
bor, and energy, and conserve natural resources and decrease pollution by
agricultural chemicals or other agents that contribute to the degradation
of the environment.
AGMP accords a high priority to implementing activities that combat
desertification and to instituting preparedness, management, response, and
remedial action against the adverse effects of drought. Since the 1970s, the
Commission for Agricultural Meteorology (CAgM; www.wmo.ch/web/
wcp/agm/CAgM/CAgMmenu.htm) of WMO has been active in addressing
the issue of agricultural drought and made recommendations regarding
the role of agrometeorology to help solve drought problems in drought-
stricken areas, particularly in Africa. The commission appointed a number
of working groups and rapporteurs with expertise relating to drought such
as meteorological aspects of drought processes, indices for assessment of
droughts, drought probability maps, operational use of agrometeorology
for crop and pasture production in drought-prone areas, agrometeorolog-
ical inputs and measures to alleviate the effects of droughts, assessment
of the economic impacts of droughts, and so on. Based on the activities of
these working groups and rapporteurs, a number of reports were published

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