Assessing the benefits of weather and seasonal forecasts to millet growers in Niger
Assessing the benefits of weather and seasonal forecasts to millet growers in Niger
复制标题
评估天气和季节预报对尼日尔小米种植者的好处
DOI：
10.1016/j.agrformet.2016.04.010
复制
发表时间：
2016
影响因子：
6.2
通讯作者：
B. Sultan
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
P. Roudier;A. Alhassane;C. Baron;S. Louvet;B. Sultan
西非农民每年都需要根据雨季的一些特点，如雨季的开始、雨季的结束、累积降雨量或干旱期的出现，作出重要决定。因此，提前了解这些参数可能对他们有意义。本文旨在评估10天和季节性预报对尼日尔谷子种植者的种植方法和收入的影响。要做到这一点，我们采用事先的方法，再加上一个经济模型，模拟选择的种植策略之间的24个可用的作物模型SARRA-H的基础上。该方法明确考虑到风险规避，并侧重于两种不同类型的典型农民有限的和大的适应能力，参考可行的决策选择敏感的预测信息的可用性。结果表明：（i）单独使用10天预报或将10天预报与季节预报相结合对所有类型的农民都是相当有益的（例如，根据适应可能性，10天预测的收入中位数变化范围为+1.8%至+13%），（ii）在大多数情况下，能够获得化肥和较大耕地的农民从预测中受益更多，（iii）即使季节性预测本身并不真正有益，与十天预测一并使用时，尽管有这些积极的结果，人们必须强调，在使用这些预测时，大约20%的情况下可能会发生收入损失，这可能是有效采用的限制因素。
West African farmers need to take every year crucial decisions based on some characteristics of the rainy season such as the onset, the offset, the cumulated rainfall or the occurrence of dry spells. Knowing these parameters in advance may therefore be of interest for them. This paper aims at assessing the impacts of 10-days and seasonal forecasts on Niger millet growers' cropping practices and their income. To do so, we apply an ex-ante approach based on the crop model SARRA-H coupled with an economic model that simulates the choice of cropping strategies among 24 available. The approach takes explicitly risk aversion into account and focuses on two different kinds of typical farmers with restricted and large adaptation capacities, in reference to the availability of viable decision options sensitive to forecast information. Results show (i) that 10-days forecasts alone or a combination of 10-days and seasonal forecasts could be quite beneficial for all types of farmers (e.g. median income change with 10-days forecast ranges from +1.8% to +13% according to adaptation possibilities), (ii) that in most of the cases farmers with access to fertilizers and larger arable land benefit more from forecasts and (iii) that even if seasonal forecasts are not really beneficial alone, they are when used in combination with 10-days forecasts. Despite these positive results, one has to underline that income losses may occur in about 20% of cases when using these forecasts, which may be a limiting factor to their effective adoption.