Using Agrometeorological Information for crop insurance in Malawi 21/09/2018 Using Agrometeorological Information for crop insurance in Malawi Adams Chavula Malawi Meteorological Services PO Box 2, CHILEKA, BLANTYRE, MALAWI Email:customercare@metmalawi.com WMO/FAO Training Workshop on GIS and Remote Sensing Applications in Agricultural Meteorology for SADC Countries November 14 – 15, 2005, Gaborone, Botswana

OUTLINE Background Information 21/09/2018 OUTLINE Background Information Characteristics of weather based Yield Index Data and Software Tools Overall Methodology Some Results Things to do Proposed products Conclusions 21 September, 2018

BACKGROUND This is a World Bank Initiative 21/09/2018 BACKGROUND This is a World Bank Initiative The Agricultural and Rural Development Commodity Risk Management Group of World Bank collected daily rainfall data (1961 – 2000) for 13 stations from DoMS World Bank developed a Malawi Maize Production Index (MMPI) as an underlying indicator for the Malawi's food security situation This index turned out to be poorly linked with yields The report was presented to FAO for comments and recommendations FAO proposed use of tools in AgroMetShell (AMS) to develop an effective weather based index FAO proposed a partnership agreement programme with DoMS The agreement included a visit of an Agrometeorologist to FAO - Rome for three months to develop the index 21 September, 2018

Location of Malawi

Some Facts about Malawi Divided into : 8 Agricultural Development Divisions (ADDs), 27 Rural Development Projects (RDPs) 154 Extension Planning Areas which are further divided into sections and blocks Agriculture contribution: - 85% of our people live in rural areas, most of whom depend on agriculture for a living; - 98% of agriculture in Malawi is rain-fed and 2%under irrigation; - 13% of the farmers use improved seeds (Hybrids and Open Pollinated Varieties, OPVs; - Frequently affected by drought or dry spells - Maize is the staple food crop grown throughout all the agricultural development divisions. 21 September, 2018

A desired weather- based yield index for crop insurance should be... 21/09/2018 A desired weather- based yield index for crop insurance should be... available throughout the country tamper-resistant: potential beneficiaries should not be able to manipulate the index; objective: the methodology should be repeatable by anyone who has access to the basic weather data well correlated with yields reported by agricultural statistics robustness vis-à-vis missing data agronomically sound publicly available 21 September, 2018

Data and Software Tools January to December dekadal (10-day period) data on Rainfall, Maximum and Minimum temperatures and Wind Speed, Sunshine hours Relative Humidity Maize phenology data (planting, flowering, maturity) Reference data such as soil Water Holding Capacity (WHC), Crop Phenology and Crop Cycle lengths. Area (Ha) and yield (Kg per Ha) data for Maize by Extension Planning Area National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) dekadal images for Malawi country window 21 September, 2018

Software Tools New _LocClim – spatial interpolation AgroMetShell (AMS) – Water balance calculations, spatial analysis, image calculations IDA (WinDisp) – extraction of EPA values Microsoft Office – Excel – Statistical analysis 21 September, 2018

CHOICE OF INTERPOLATION METHOD YEAR_DEK STATION BASED ERRORS ESTIMATES GRID BASED ERROR ESTIMATES ESTIMATED SPATIAL AVERAGE BIAS VARIANCE RMS SHEPARDS 2005_Feb1 (Dry) 1.779 mm 36.11 mm 36.16 mm 3.62 mm 37.28 mm 37.45 mm 58.21 mm KRIGING 0.116 mm 33.31 mm 3.818mm 34.66 mm 34.87 mm 58.91 mm 2003_Jan1 (wet) 4.846 mm 100.8 mm 100.9 mm 2.352 mm 85.41 mm 85.44 mm 149.7 mm 2.301 mm 93.05 mm 93.08 mm 11.60 mm 81.10 mm 81.93 mm 153.7 mm 1990_Oct2 (dry) 0.008 mm 0.202 mm -0.00 mm 0.146 mm 57.98 mm 0.005 mm 0.181 mm 0.145 mm 1990_Jul2 -0.02 mm 0.653 mm 0.062 mm 0.741 mm 0.744 mm 0.01 mm 0.636 mm 0.089 mm 0.712 mm 0.717 mm 1990_Dec3 -4.63 mm 34.37 mm 34.68 mm -2.99 mm 38.45 mm 38.57 mm -2.61 mm 35.36 mm 35.46 mm -0.66 mm 38.20 mm 38.21 mm 61.17 mm 1994_May1 0.333 mm 0.334 mm -0.05 mm 0.393 mm 0.398 mm 0.259 mm -0.01 mm 0.396 mm 0.397 mm -0.06 mm 0.486 mm 0.491 mm

Overall methodology (1) 21/09/2018 Overall methodology (1) to reduce dependence of index from individual point weather data, gridding of 10-daily rainfall and of PET (46 stations with data between 1961 and 2005: 1100 “images”) Development of simplified PET method to avoid problems with missing radiation data Calibration of planting dates against actual EPA planting dates (1995-1998) Calculation of water balance parameters with AgroMetShell 21 September, 2018

Elevation map with 46 weather stations 21/09/2018 Elevation map with 46 weather stations

Sample rain (left.) and PET (right.) grids for dekad 1 of January 2005 21/09/2018 Sample rain (left.) and PET (right.) grids for dekad 1 of January 2005

About the relevance of data from neighbouring countries... 21/09/2018 About the relevance of data from neighbouring countries...

Overall methodology (2) 21/09/2018 Overall methodology (2) Water balance computed on 0.05 degree grid (3928 monitoring points) Selection of explanatory variables through principal components analysis Calibration against 1350 EPA yields between 1995 and 2005 (yields in Malawi display NO technology trend) 21 September, 2018

AMS:CREATING STATION LIST 21/09/2018 AMS:CREATING STATION LIST

AMS: value added output variables 21/09/2018 AMS: value added output variables

RESULTS Final regression equation for local maize 21 September, 2018 21/09/2018 RESULTS Final regression equation for local maize 21 September, 2018

Definition of final forecasting variables 21/09/2018 Definition of final forecasting variables Ycal(local)=0.93242*Yavg+1.81576*DEFtot-0.17464*WEXtot +2.35743*ETAveg-26.50667*DEFveg 21 September, 2018

Observed local maize Vs calculated (1995 to 2005) 21/09/2018 Observed local maize Vs calculated (1995 to 2005) 21 September, 2018

Average local maize yield (1995-2005) 21/09/2018 Average local maize yield (1995-2005) 21 September, 2018

Average local maize yield extracted from New_LocClim average yield map 21/09/2018 Average local maize yield extracted from New_LocClim average yield map 21 September, 2018

21/09/2018 2005 yield index 21 September, 2018

2005 yield index departure from expected value 21/09/2018 2005 yield index departure from expected value 21 September, 2018

21/09/2018 Calculated 2005 yield index based on weather data Vs yield reported by ministry of agriculture 21 September, 2018

21/09/2018 Difference Average 2005 index 21 September, 2018

21/09/2018 Area at risk of food insecurity Agricultural consumption year 2005-2006 Source: FAO/WFP 21 September, 2018

Things to do (1) Calibration with (available) hybrid maize data 21/09/2018 Things to do (1) Calibration with (available) hybrid maize data Finalize description of methodology Define specific indicators for crop insurance based on yield index (% of normal yield, yield threshold...) 21 September, 2018

21/09/2018 Things to do (2) Establish routine of Yield forecasting (10-day basis) at Malawi Meteorological Service Regularly publish current yield indices in national agrometeorological bulletin Make yield forecast and crop insurance indices available on www.metmalawi.com ( website of Malawi Meteorological Service) 21 September, 2018

Proposed products above-below yield index threshold maps 21/09/2018 Proposed products above-below yield index threshold maps areas where current yield has a probability of exceedence of 70, 80 or 90 % best planting dates, or expected yield as a function of the time of planting calibration optimised to minimize false positives (good years assessed to be poor) build in crop prices and derive probabilities of  "maize income maps" 21 September, 2018

21/09/2018 Conclusions The yield index satisfies all the desirable criteria for maize crop insurance in Malawi First estimates of Index can be provided at planting time and updated in real time throughout the season The index needs to be refined using criteria to be provided by insurance experts More specific products for crop insurance can be prepared 21 September, 2018

THAT’S IT Thank you for your attention 21 September, 2018