1. Goal To utilize the ability to predict climate variability on the scale of months to a year to improve management and decision making in respect to crop production at local, regional, and national scales CLIMAG: CLIMATE AND AGRICULTURE

2. Objectives To enhance the interface between meteorological, agricultural, and social science communities To develop the capacity, in tropical regions, for the integrated use of climate and agricultural modeling leading to improved techniques for forecasting yield To establish the forecasting needs of local, regional, and national decision-makers leading to an evaluation of ways of using such information to improve decision-making in crop production Major Research Elements Climate Predictions and Agronomic data collection Crop Modelling and Yield Predictions Management Considerations and Impact Assessment CLIMAG: CLIMATE AND AGRICULTURE

3. Upscaling Local Management Decisions Regional Management Decisions Regional Yield Data Regional Soil & Crop Data Local Soil & Crop Data Regional Crop Yield Predictions Local Crop Yield Predictions Local Mechanistic Crop Modelling Regional Agricultural Impact Assessment Local Agricultural Impact Assessment Regional Yield Surveys Crop, Soil & Socio- economic Surveys Down scaling Down scaling GCMs Archive Data Predicted Regional Weather Data Predicted Local Weather Data Local Tactical Management Options CLIMATE PREDICTIONS & AGRONOMIC DATA COLLECTION CROP MODELLING & YIELD PREDICTIONS MANAGEMENT CONSIDERATIONS & IMPACT ASSESSMENT Large ScaleSmall Scale Regional Empirical/ Statistical Modelling Regional Mechanistic Crop ModellingCLIMAG

4. Terms of Reference Guide START’s CLIMAG project, including: Implement regional “demonstration” projects and pilot projects, undertake capacity building activities Identify strategic research challenges that should be taken up by START’s program sponsors and their core projects Foster partnership between Various stakeholder communities Resource agencies CLIMAG Steering Group Chair: Hartmut Grassl Members: J. Hansen, M.V.K. Sivakumar, S. Gadgil, P. Gregory, IHDP Rep. (tbd) Significant progress on all terms of Reference…

5. CLIMAG South Asian Demonstration Project Project Partners: APSRU/CSIRO, Australia APSRU/CSIRO, Australia Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, India Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, India Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, India Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, India Bogor Agricultural University, Indonesia Bogor Agricultural University, Indonesia Pakistan Agricultural Research Council, Pakistan Pakistan Agricultural Research Council, Pakistan International Research Institute for Climate Prediction, USA International Research Institute for Climate Prediction, USA Asia-Pacific Network Asia-Pacific Network NOAA NOAA

6. Project Partners: Mali Meteorological Service Institute of Rural Economic Development (Mali) International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT-Mali) African Centre of Meteorological Application for Development (ACMAD-Niger) Agricultural, Hydrological, and Meteorological Programme (AGRHYMET-Niger) Institute of Agrometeorology and Environmental Analysis for Agriculture (Italy) Wageningen University (The Netherlands) International Research Institute for Climate Prediction (USA) CLIMAG West Africa Demonstration Project

11. A Challenge for the ESSP family.., A fundamental science question is whether the impacts of climate variability on regional crop production are best estimated by: (a)Downscaling climate models, running crop models, and scaling-up the results to regional scales Or (b) Developing regional crop models which can interface directly with large scale climate model- based information (including both statistical and mechanistic modeling approaches)

12. A challenge to us all…Climate is one of the many factors that affect farming systems!

13. Other related developments: Other related developments:  IRI – a mature organization  WMO-CLIPS  START: AIACC (several projects); Africa grants (several)  NOAA OGP support of projects  Development of GECaFS/ESSP  CGIAR: Challenges program  WB: Ag S&T Assessment  IFPRI:  ….

15. EXPECTATIONS FROM THIS WORKSHOP… (1)Review of the State-of-knowledge and our ability to effectively use this knowledge (2)Special Issue of “XXXXX Journal” (3) Recommendations for the way forward…for further consideration by the C&D Meeting (Stockholm, May 2005) (4) Report/Workshop proceedings to Sponsors THANK YOU: WMO ALL SPONSORS WORKSHOP DIRECTORS ALL PARTICIPANTS