Issues and Challenges of Climate Change for Women Farmers in the Caribbean: The Potential of ICTs

This paper discusses research results of a study on Caribbean women farmers' access to quality information for livelihood security in the face of a changing climate. It takes the position that organic farming, permaculture, and other bio-friendly forms of farming are the main viable long-term solution for food security for developing country farmers, both because of their methods and the product diversity they encourage.

The need for information, as stated here, is fundamental to food security and can be made possible through information and communication technology (ICT). This includes the following principles: localised information; data collection, record keeping, and transparency; and networking, cooperation, and advocacy among small farmers. The paper discusses women's farm information networks in the Caribbean and data gathered on communication, including frequency of use of cell, satellite, and land line phones; computer without and with internet; video, film, and DVD; TV or radio; e-conferences; and blog/social networking. Cell phones, TV and radio, and computers with internet are used on a daily basis by more than 50% of the women surveyed. The document provides profiles of three women farmers in the Knowing and Growing Network from Belize, Guyana, and Jamaica to demonstrate a spectrum of age, activity, and ICT experience, as examples of the kinds of farmers working in the region.

In the author's estimation, current ICT applications available and potentially useful to farmers include the following:

• Cuba Met Service (INSMET) website: INSMET has been producing regional climate change scenarios for the Caribbean using the PRECIS system and posts various information on their website.
  
• Studying Rainfall Patterns in Southern America: A research project of The Earth Institute and International Research Institute for Climate and Society.
  
• MapAction: This United Kingdom-based organisation works in disaster zones providing frequently updated situation maps showing where relief help is most urgently needed. It includes MapAction Latin American and the Caribbean (MapLAC).
  
• Combining Web 2.0 Tools with Local Knowledge to Build a Clearer Picture of Climate Change: Tools including wikis, mashups, blogs, Google Maps, and weather maps based on local observation can be combined to develop simulations using open data around the issue of climate changes.
• Data Collection Using Mobile Phones: Mobile Researcher is a small application that can be installed on mobile phones to gather data, either by entering text numbers or by answering a series of questions designed to meet the specific needs of the project.
  
• Using Radio TV Drama to Adapt to Climate Change: A radio drama project to enhance learning and dialogue in farming communities coping with climate change takes place in northern Nigeria. Nigerian agricultural research institutions and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are collaborating with farming organisations to find adaptation strategies, and the radio drama is building on this research.
  
• Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) Uses Wireless to Track Weather: A centralised system uses information fed from farmers' own weather stations and hundreds of others recently installed on farms, at grain elevators, and at agri-retail outlets across Western Canada.
  
• United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) Atlas of Our Changing Environment: This online atlas is an interactive media that depicts humanity’s past and present impact on the environment through illustrations, satellite images, and ground photographs that are powered by Google Maps.
  
• Ushahidi: This free and open source application is a platform that allows anyone to gather distributed data via text messaging/short message service (SMS), email, or web form. Resulting data are visualised on thematic maps or timelines.
  
• Geospatial Technology Program: This project will design and develop a programme to provide smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa and other agricultural stakeholders with access to geospatial data, services, tools, and methodologies to help them make more informed decisions. It is intended that farmers will have access to higher quality, location-specific information to make better decisions. They can use this information to decide which crops to raise and when to harvest; receive pest and disease information via cell phone; and apply changing technologies to boost productivity. They will also be able to help other farmers by reporting pest and disease conditions.
  
• International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT): This research organisation serves the semi-arid areas of the developing world with integrated climate risk assessment and management system using remote sensing and geographic information system (GIS) techniques to study rainfall patterns and accordingly prepare advisories for farmers in drylands of Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
  
• Adaptation information websites: These include sites providing information on reducing the energy usage in rural communities, on collaborative knowledge sharing for climate change adaptation, portals with guidance on web-based tools for information exchange, and portals with research, analysis, and planning tools.
  

The document advises women to "find those individuals within government bodies and institutions who understand and champion small holder farm interests...These institutions include those responsible for solid waste management, national security forces, national water commission, forestry, meteorological office, climate risk insurance bodies, tourism, aqua and fisheries development, coastal lands management, local and national media, and environmental legislature. In other words, the policy context, while still evolving, needs the strong and vocal advocacy from and for women farmers." Both grassroots and policy level capacity building, as stated here, is needed to do the following:

• Incorporate climate change adaptation in budgets.
  
• Understand local livelihood realities and contexts, and how these relate to local climate variability and change.
  
• Decentralise knowledge networks for promoting diversity in livelihood strategies in the context of variable and changing climate conditions.
  
• Increase South-South learning and learning from the activities of farmers worldwide and the organic food movement.

The document concludes by pointing out that prior to disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the Tsunami of 2007, there was a need for both the states and their citizens to have had climate-related information available and to have developed ICT systems, both for modelling and planning for possible change and for warning systems development. "The relaying of instant messages during emergencies as well as the process of longer term planning will require that ‘networked information’ can no longer be limited to governments or to institutions but must be made available to the public domain through multi-levels of access and distribution points with farmers as active actors and farms as active spaces."