Bangladesh updates

While cyclonic storm Jawad caused huge destruction of ready Aman rice around Bangladesh, farmers were very happy for saving their crops timely through weather forecast information shared in the weather schools, initiated by the WATERAPPscale project. The farmers in the school have received the weather advisory 3-5 days in advance which helps them to take timely action and climate-smart decision-making.

We gladly announce that now we have 10 new farmer field schools, meaning that a total of 12 farmer field schools have been established.

October 2021, Dr. Uthpal Kumar (Wageningen University and Khulna University) went to Sylhet and Mymensingh districts on his mission to implement the Meteoblue and FarmerSupport APP (WATERAPP) in these regions.

The Waterapps Project aims to improve hydroclimatic information services with and for smallholder farmers in peri-urban Khulna, Bangladesh. The Department of Agricultural Extension was primarily involved in Waterapps. Mr. Jibananda Roy, a Sub Assistant Agriculture Officer (SAAO) recently received “Bangabandhu National Agriculture Award 1424” for his devoted work with farming communities in Batiaghata, Khulna.

WATERAPPscale project (2021-2023) aims to bridge the gap between existing national weather and climate services and the local needs by upscaling the work of the WATERAPPS throughout Bangladesh.

he Super Cyclone Amphan hit southwest Bangladesh on May 20th 2020. It killed, destroyed houses and farms and raised the issue of strong and well maintained embankments in the coastal areas of Bangladesh. Forecasting information from the WaterApps project helped test farmers and surrounding villages harvest and prepare before the cyclone hit.

The peri-urban farmers around Khulna, Bangladesh have established a ‘Weather Club’ at Sanchibunia village with the support of the Waterapps project.

Ela Ganguli is a female farmer from Khulna, Bangladesh who is part of a group of farmers involved in co-developing climate information services in WaterApps project. In this video she tells us about her experiences with the WaterApps climate information services

In the last week of November the WaterApps project team came together in Khulna, Bangladesh. The visit included a seminar day with presentations on the project progress and climate variability in the area as well as day of field visits. One of the visitors was Spyros Paparrizos, post-doctoral researcher at Wageningen University. He supports the PhD students working in the project in their on-going research.

This post shows the story of climate service co-production written by a local farmer Mr Samiron Golder. He lives close to the Soilmari River Delta at Batiaghata sub-district in Khulna, Bangladesh. Mr. Golder’s beautiful Bangla handwriting describes the local setting and weather and agricultural challenges faced by the farmers in the Lower Ganges Delta. This artwork shows the success story of the WaterApps Weather School implemented by the WaterApps Project funded by NWO and coordinated by Wageningen University, the Netherlands. This post translates the main messages of Mr. Golder who expressed his gratitude to the WaterApps Project and the meteoblue weather provider through his beautiful artwork.

On 21 September, I joined Uthpal Kumar (Wageningen University and Khulna University PhD candidate) on his climate service training for farmers in Khulna, Bangladesh. Every week he visits two villages where he shares the weather forecasts of the following week and discussed the forecast of the previous week and its effect on the famers’ decisions.

Uthpal Kumar of the WaterApps project was involved in a monitoring and evaluation workshop of the Participatory Integrated Climate Services for Agriculture (PICSA) approach. The workshop took place in Dinajpur, Bangladesh from 7-11 July and was the start of the evaluation that will take place until September 2019.

The ‘Workshop on Information Services for Participatory Water Management’ in Peri-Urban Khulna was jointly organized by the DeltaCAP (www.deltacapproject.net) and WaterApps projects.