Solar-powered units are being used for early warning and crop insurance schemes, as weather patterns become more erratic
KAKAMEGA, Kenya (AlertNet) - Kenya’s drought crisis is boosting demand among poor farming communities for solar-powered weather stations that can help them cope with increasingly erratic weather.
From corporate-led crop insurance schemes to government investment in early warning systems, solar energy is being tapped as an affordable and green power source for devices that capture valuable weather and climate data in rural locations.
Ann Bwisa, a farmer in Tuuti village, near the western town of Kakamega, is benefiting from the trend, which is inspiring local women to stick with an occupation that has saddled them with heavy losses due to uncertain weather patterns.
In 2006, she planted some five acres of land with maize and beans at the first sign of the short rains in October, but they all withered away after the rains failed.
“I was depressed for a long time,” says Bwisa. “The thought of moving to the city to look for casual jobs even crossed my mind.”
But she decided against it and signed up to Kilimo Salama (safe farming), a crop insurance scheme that uses a remote solar-powered weather station to determine compensation for losses from failed rains or too much precipitation.
“I am now able to raise enough income to pay fees for my son who is pursuing a degree course at the School of Professional Studies in Nairobi, and my daughter who is studying law at the University of Nairobi,” says Bwisa.
The two-year-old crop insurance scheme has successfully used solar technology to monitor weather patterns in farming areas, according to the Centre for Training and Integrated Research in Arid and Semi Arid Lands Development (CETRAD), based in Nanyuki in central Kenya.
Data gathered by local automatic weather stations powered by solar energy makes it possible to gauge the extent of erratic weather, and fix a corresponding payout in the form of seeds to farmers who have experienced crop failure, CETRAD officials say.
Each automatic weather station is fitted with a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) device which enables it to record data on farms within a 20 km radius every 15 minutes, according to CETRAD technician Joseph Ndung’u.
“Once it has been verified that a farmer has incurred a loss, the crop insurance scheme is then used to determine the level of compensation a farmer is due through seed payoffs,” says Ndung’u. “The gadget also has sensors which can measure radiation and temperature, as well as the speed of wind and its direction.”
SLOW TO ACT ON ALERTS?
The Kenya Meteorological Department (KMD), meanwhile, is hopeful that solar technology could be the next frontier in weather forecasting through powering remote early warning systems.
A July report by KMD and the ministry of environment and natural resources indicates that Kenya is expected to experience frequent and extreme climate shocks, especially in the Arid and Semi Arid Lands (ASALS) which cover 80 percent of Kenya’s territory.
The current drought began late last year, before households and farmers had time to recover from another severe dry spell in 2008-09. Scientists disagree over whether climate change will bring more or less rain to East Africa in the future, but since 2005, the region has experienced unusually frequent droughts.
With backing from humanitarian agencies, the government is showing a keen interest in investing in meteorological systems in the ASALS. The ministry of agriculture, however, is concerned about slow response to drought warnings, based on an audit carried out in January.
“We are not responding as quickly as required to natural disaster alerts, and this could slow the pace of protecting the country from drought shocks,” says Romano Kiome, a permanent secretary in the agriculture ministry.
Trials of an early warning system installed at the Dertu Millennium Village project in the northeastern district of Garissa have shown that the technology is useful to pastoralist communities, preparing them against looming drought.
With a storage capacity of 12 volts, the solar-powered unit collects data on humidity, solar radiation and winds, according to Samuel Mbalu, database manager at the U.N.-backed Millennium Village.
SELLING ANIMALS IN TIME
Pastoralist Mohamed Abdi Adow heaps praise on the system, explaining that information from the station enabled him to sell most of his livestock before the current drought peaked.
He and other pastoralists from the village are thankful to the three-year-old solar station project for sparing them a long trek to the flanks of the river Tana in search of grazing for their animals.
“This time, alerts from the station enabled me to make arrangements with traders who bought my cattle before their market value was affected by the drought,” says Adow. “I have a few cattle left but they are okay because I can supplement their feeding with haystacks which the Millennium project showed us how to make.”
Mbalu, who has worked at the facility for more than a year, says about 300 households are benefiting from the technology, which keeps them abreast of impending drought or extreme weather like heat waves.
Wind speeds around the village can be as high as 40 km per hour due to unchecked tree harvesting, he says, while the highest radiation recorded so far is 30 watts per square metre. In January, only two millimetres of rainfall were recorded at the station.
“When we analyse the data and find out that the seasons when we are expecting rain have recorded very small quantities of humidity… this is a warning that in the coming months there will be drought,” says Mbalu. “So we approach the community to inform them to be prepared to sell some of their cattle, get enough food stocks, and store hay for the remaining livestock.”
David Njagi is an environmental writer based in Nairobi.
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