Vientiane (Vientiane Times) - The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) have launched a project to strengthen agro-climate monitoring and information systems in a bid to
improve adaptation to climate change and food security.

The project for Strengthening Agro-climate Monitoring and Information Systems (SAMIS) seeks to enhance national and provincial level monitoring, analysis, communication and the use of agro-meteorological data and information for decision-making in relation to agriculture and food security.

It also aims to improve the monitoring and analysis of agriculture production systems by strengthening land resources, information management systems, and agro-ecological zoning to support agricultural policies and climate change adaptation.

The project will improve local level climate information services and will share them together with production scenarios to support local level planning and smallholders' adaptation strategies through appropriate farmer field school curricula for
climate change adaptation.

The initiative will also develop scenarios for policies and plans for agriculture and natural resource management at the national and provincial levels.

The project will enhance existing agro-meteorological networks and develop the infrastructure, procedures and capacity to provide high quality data and information services.

At the national level, capacity on geographical information and agro-meteorology will be enhanced. At the local level, capacity to use the information generated by the project will be improved.

SAMIS will use the Land Resource Information Management System, National Agro-Ecological Zoning, and the Socio-Agriculture Vulnerability Analysis to analyse Systems at Risk.

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and FAO are hosting a two-day inception workshop that began yesterday to explain the project and its goals to ministry officials and personnel from other involved sectors.

Attending the workshop are Director General of the Department of Meteorology and Hydrology, Mr Khanmany Khounphonh, FAO Country Representative Dr Stephen Rudgard, and other officials.

Speaking at the meeting yesterday, Mr Khanmany said "This project will contribute to national socio-economic development. Its main goal is to determine a plan for adaptation to climate change."

"This plan requires capacity building for early warning systems and the improvement and expansion of meteorology and hydrology systems," he added.

By Times Reporters
(Latest UpdateSeptember 7, 2017)