MAINSTREAMING CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION IN AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION
Different farmers may make different decisions based on their resources and
their attitude to disk
Do we need any other events calculated?
SLIDE 12 - WHAT SHOULD WE COMMUNICATE WITH FARMERS ABOUT
EVENTS, AND HOW?
What? (continued)
4. For each event – which characteristics (e.g. levels of total rainfall) are most
useful to focus on? Think about this and discuss with farmers
SLIDE 13 - WHAT SHOULD WE COMMUNICATE WITH FARMERS ABOUT
EVENTS, AND HOW?
B. How?
Work with none and semi-literate farmers has shown that farmers (with some initial
help) are very able to calculate probabilities using graphs in the same way that you
have just done
C. Who else other than farmers should receive the information on events?
Why? (extension, input suppliers, research, policy makers. To i) help them in
decision making and ii) support farmers e.g. if farmers are going to grow small
grains, help develop markets and provide seeds)
SUMMARISE ON PROBABILTY USING THE FOLLOWING EXAMPLE...
SLIDE 14 – AN EXAMPLE OF PROBABILITY AND CHOICE
A good example of probability and its use – Ask the course participants the
following....
Knowing the probability can help us in planning. To use a gambling example,
imagine that you are asked whether you would like to pay $10 and you may lose your
$10 OR you may win $100. You would want to know the chance (probability) of
winning and if you know it, that may help you to decide whether to pay your $10 or
not. Imagine if the chance is 4 out of 10 (4/10) that you will win. What would you do?
Imagine instead if the chance is 7 out of 10. It is the same with farming and the
weather. It does NOT tell us what will definitely happen, but knowing the probability
may be helpful to farmers.
A Training Manual on Use of Climate Information and Vulnerability and Capacity Assessment for
Agricultural Extension Staff in Zimbabwe
Page 56