Workshop on Information Services for Farmers in Peri-Urban Khulna

The ‘Workshop on Information Services for Participatory Water Management’ in Peri-Urban Khulna was jointly organized by the DeltaCAP (www.deltacapproject.net) and WaterApps (www.waterapps.net) projects from 27-29th November, 2017. The venue of the workshop was CSS AVA centre and Khulna University. In the 2nd day of the workshop there was a field visit in 2 areas of Rupsha and Batiaghata Upazila of Khulna.  

Information services, such as weather forecasts or forecasts of water levels, can help farmers and other water users to manage water resources and take farm decisions.

The workshop aims to understand:

1. How can we develop information services that matter to people?
2. Is training on participatory development and use of water and climate information a capacity you want to develop in your organisation?

The workshop has a dual objective:

• With farmers and agriculture officers: What are information needs? Progress towards the participatory development of climate services and capacity in Botiaghata and Rupsha sub-district.
• With service providers (water & climate data and extension): how can we develop information services that matter to people? Is training on participatory development and / or use of climate services a capacity you want to develop in your organisation?

The workshop was conducted as learning-by-doing approach by engaging potential service providers and service receivers, to co-develop these services. The approach of the work has a challenge of providing hydro-climatic information services to farmers and water managers in peri-urban Khulna. Examples of such information are weather forecasts, seasonal forecasts, and forecasts of water levels and salinity in support of on-farm decisions. By starting from this example, the outcome of this workshop is to 1) assess the interest of information service providers, such DAE, BMD, BWDB, LGED, research institutes and NGOs, to provide these information services to their partners and constituents, and 2) build capacity with these organisation to do so if desired. The choice to focus on hydro-climatic information services will be evaluated after one year, after which other services can be proposed.

For more details please contact- Saskia Werners  ; Uthpal Kumar

https://www.wur.nl/en/Persons/dr.-SE-Saskia-Werners.htm

https://www.vcard.wur.nl/Views/Profile/View.aspx?id=77199

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Note: This blog article was published in parallel on the DeltaCAP project website: https://deltacapproject.net/2017/12/13/workshop-on-information-services-for-farmers-in-peri-urban-khulna/