Weather stations staff trained to collect data for agro-meteorology
Training is taking into consideration COVID conditions
Even during lockdown time, Lao government officials working within the FAO project “Strengthening Agro-climatic Monitoring and Information Systems (SAMIS)” continued the long journey to become senior experts in agro-climatology and agro-meteorology. The staff of the Department of Meteorology and Hydrology (DMH) has organized a training to stations staff to teach them about the LaCSA system. The demo LaCSA system is available at http://147.46.250.219:8081/ with a new user friendly interface that can be visualized in smartphones easily.
The training held today see the participation of Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment staff from four provinces, in order to comply with distancing rules and to avoid big meetings. The training includes Attapeu, Sekong, Savannakhet, and Khammuan province. However, all the provinces have been trained over the last five months, for a total of 22 stations.
The LaCSA system is providing rainfall and temperature seasonal forecast as well as crop calendar and pest and disease to farmers on near real-time (once per week) during the crop season. After learning LaCSA, the local level technical staff will learn about agro-meteorology and about pest and disease modelling used in agro-meteorology systems. Finally, the Lao National Lao National Radio presents loudspeaker reading in villages.
The new data collection for agro-meteorology
The main objective of the training is to learn how to collect additional agro-meteorological data used in the modelling in LaCSA. This includes collecting data for three crops: rice, maize, and cassava. The station staff has to collect information about the starting and end date of the crop cycle (start and end date) and if there is any pest and disease. In order to complete the data collection, the staff is provided with computer and internet connection, and will later also receive tablets. These are used to collect data at field base, using a bar code that will define the exact location and information about each field. An example of a barcode for Attapeu is presented. The attempt is to assess a total of approximately 220 farmers’ fields in the vicinity of the weather stations that will be assessed during the year. In this case, Lao PDR is again leading a national level valuable experiment that is pioneering data collection in South East Asia.
The role of PONRE and DONRE in agro-meteorology
This training ensures the continued activities of the Provincial and District Office of Natural resources and Environment (PONRE and DONRE) offices will become experts in using LaCSA and agro-meteorology and can be used as valuable points of contact for the experts of MAF anywhere in the country. The objective of SAMIS is to change government offices’ capacities in a way that the daily involvement in the activities of agro-meteorology, involving an expert in the country development and ensuring farmers food security.