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2 SCF Folio About the project... Background Agriculture in the Philippines and eastern Australia is greatly affected by the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Climate in these two countries has higher season-to-season variability relative to other regions at the same latitude and level of annual rainfall. Such variability has significant effects on farm incomes. In Australia, it accounts for around 40 percent of the variation in its agricultural income. Similar consequences are also seen in the Philippines. Climate variability leaves rainfed agricultural producers exposed to high levels of risk when making decisions about the choice of outputs and inputs. It can also lead to conservative practices that, while reducing the negative effects of climatic extremes, may however come at the expense of reduced agricultural incomes and higher resource degradation. Because of all these, a strategic mitigation of climatic risk that is so endemic to rainfed agriculture would clearly be of significant value to farmers. Areas affected by ENSO suffer from increased variability, but one compensation is that improvements El Niño is a phenomenon that occurs in a specific point in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean—which is quite a distance away from the Philippines and Australia—but its effects and impact are nonetheless felt because of the interactions between the ocean surface temperature effect and the overlying atmosphere in the tropical Pacific region. This interaction is better known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Effect of ENSO in the tropical Pacific in the understanding of ENSO now provide a degree of predictability about climate fluctuations. Climate forecasts offer information on climatic conditions in the coming season and are sometimes presented in the form of a probability of receiving ‘above median’ or ‘below median’ rainfall. They offer skillful albeit uncertain information about climatic conditions in periods of 3–12 months ahead. In Australia, the Bureau of Meteorology provides three monthly seasonal climate outlooks based on the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) and sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies. Although about 45 percent of Australian farmers claim to take seasonal climate forecasts into account when making decisions, focus groups show that many still have reservations on the accuracy, lead time and economic benefits of their application to a specific decision. The El Niño-related drought of 2002 that affected eastern Australia, however, has led to a heightened media and farmer interest in climate science. In the Philippines, PAGASA issues seasonal climate forecasts based on the state of the equatorial Pacific Ocean. The Philippines is a country greatly affected by ENSO. In this regard, PAGASA releases ENSO bulletins as part of the National ENSO Early Warning Monitoring System (NEEWMS). It is important to ensure the accuracy and timeliness of climate forecasts to reduce the difficulty of using probabilistic climate forecasts in decisionmaking. Forecasts that shift the odds but do not remove all the uncertainty are difficult for decisionmakers to use. Specifically, there is a widespread belief that the adoption of SCFs is hampered in both the Philippines and Australia by the lack of robust means of showing the economic value of SCF for specific decisions. Source: Australian Rainman Australia and the Philippines promote SCFs In an attempt to address the above shortcoming, a Memorandum of Subsidiary Arrangement was inked between the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD) and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) in October 2004 for the undertaking of a four-year project titled Bridging the gap between seasonal climate forecasts and decisionmakers in agriculture. Implementing institutions for the Philippines are the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services
3 Administration (PAGASA), the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) and the Leyte State University (LSU) while for Australia, the key institutions involved are South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI), New South Wales Department of Primary Industries (NSW-DPI), and University of Sydney. The SCF project between Australian and Philippine institutions will draw on economics and other disciplines to develop robust ways to use SCFs in risk management. This project will work with decisionmakers in the Philippines and Australia to see where, when, and why skillful but uncertain SCFs can be valuable, and the circumstances when they are best ignored. The end result will be increased incomes of rural communities in the Philippines and Australia. The project is expected to bring about improved economic, social, and environmental outcomes in the collaborating countries given that better management of climate variability has the potential to improve resource use efficiency by providing economic benefits through improved crop planting, management and grazing strategies. Case studies in the Philippines and Australia will be used to assess where economic, environmental and social benefits may arise. The Philippine studies will focus on poor Filipino farmers who are vulnerable to climate variability while Australian studies will consider the impact of droughts on farming families and rural communities. Two key methods are to be employed in this project. The first is to value the potential contribution of SCF to decisionmaking under climate uncertainty based on insights from economics and psychology. The second method is the use of farm and policy-level case studies in the Philippines and Australia to gain a practical appreciation of how decisionmakers actually use SCF and how to bridge the gap between potential and actual use of SCF. Case studies will use representative farm models to estimate the potential value of SCFs and will provide information on how farmers and other decisionmakers use SCFs to make real decisions. An important component of the project is the development of extension strategies based on the case study experiences to promote the value of SCFs. To help implement this, the project will tap into extension networks in Australia and the Philippines and provide tools for agricultural advisers to confidently promote SCFs to decision problems with the greatest payoff. Objectives • To improve the capacity of PAGASA to develop and deliver SCF for the case study regions of the Philippines; • To distill key practical and methodological features of economic and psychological approaches to valuing SCF; • To estimate the potential economic value of SCF for farm and policy or industry level case studies in the Philippines and Australia; • To identify those factors leading to a gap between actual and potential values of SCF; and • To develop and implement strategies to better match forecasts with decisionmaker’s needs. (SCF Project Updates June 2005) People and organizations involved... Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) PAGASA is the Philippines’ meteorological service organization and is a member of the World Meteorological Organization. Its mandate is “to mitigate or reduce the losses to life, property and the economy of the nation occasioned by typhoons, floods, droughts and other destructive weather disturbances.” Its website is http:// www.pagasa. dost.gov.ph/. Dr. Flaviana D. Hilario is the chief of the Climatology and Agrometeorology Branch (CAB). She will supervise the preparation of the SCF and will coordinate with concerned agencies like the PIDS and LSU in the smooth implementation of the project. Ms. Edna L. Juanillo is the head of the Climate Information Monitoring and Prediction Center (CLIMPC) of the PAGASA (Weather Bureau). She is involved in the interpretation and analysis of the different climate parameters needed in the preparation of SCF. She will assist in the coordination of the Philippine activities with PIDS and LSU in the conduct of the study in the first two years of the project. Ms. Rosalina de Guzman is the assistant head of CLIMPC. She is involved in the preparation and issuance
Page 1: SCF Folio A compilation of informat
Page 5 and 6: 5 Learning the basics Dr. John Mull
Page 7 and 8: 7 The dry season is also subdivided
Page 9 and 10: 9 Tropical cyclone average tracks J
Page 11 and 12: 11 inevitably have impacts on the v
Page 13 and 14: 13 Reaching out and increasing awar
Page 15 and 16: 15 To ensure that the SCFs are rend
Page 17 and 18: Communicating through climate indic
Page 19 and 20: 19 Table 1. Awareness, usefulness,
Page 21 and 22: 21 Very often, this leads to extrem
Page 23 and 24: 23 agency, PAGASA, and sent out to
Page 25 and 26: 25 municipality. LGUs may send in t
Page 27 and 28: 27 SCF is popular in Bukidnon but..
Page 29 and 30: 29 the Provincial Agriculture Offic
Page 31 and 32: 31 Analysis and research/survey res
Page 33 and 34: 33 As the results in this initial s
Page 35 and 36: 35 Table 2. El Niño and La Niña e
Page 37 and 38: 37 average, and wet years were calc
Page 39 and 40: 39 local corn growers. In guiding f
Page 41 and 42: 41 dominated regions of northern Ne
Page 43 and 44: 43 The influence of ENSO on frost r
Page 45 and 46: 45 It is the timing of the latest f
Page 47 and 48: A model for valuing seasonal climat
Page 49 and 50: 49 And on rice crop... Nueva Ecija
Page 51 and 52: 51 Security against climate variabi
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53 been dominating the Table 1. Bor
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55 The need to help rice and corn f
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57 Figure 1. Rainfall outlook, July
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59 In Cebu: use of SCF gives higher
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61 units of N fertilizer based on g
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63 Determining corn farmers’ deci
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65 Table 2. Farmers’ responses to
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67 Project Team Australia Dr. Peter
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