NOTE: The CLIMAG Project has been completed.

Climate Prediction and Agriculture (CLIMAG) is an interdisciplinary project implemented in the developing regions of the world by START in partnership with the International Research Institute for Climate Prediction (IRI), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – Office of Global Programs (NOAA-OGP), the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN), the Agricultural Production Systems Research Unit (APSRU), and the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI). The goal of CLIMAG is to demonstrate the practical utility of forecasts of regional climate variability at intra-seasonal to seasonal scales in agricultural decision-making.

The CLIMAG project was initiated following the International Workshop on Climate Prediction and Agriculture held in Geneva in September 1998. The idea originally took root at the February 1997, START, WCRP, and IGBP-GCTE sponsored a workshop in Bogor, Indonesia where participants agreed that a collaborative research program that linked climate variability prediction and crop production was necessary. CLIMAG is based on the awareness of the adverse impact climate variability has on agriculture, and the premise that advances in climate knowledge and prediction capacity at the seasonal time scale can contribute to adaptive management and resilience within agricultural systems and therefore to food and livelihood security.

Climate information and prediction information generated by the CLIMAG project provided important inputs into agricultural planning in several developing countries. As a part of this effort an Advanced Institute on Climate Variability and Food Security was organized in July 2001 in Palisades, New York and targeted at young professionals from Asia, Africa and Latin America working in the area of agriculture and food security. The institute brought in expert faculty to provide participants intensive training in advanced climate prediction methods and tools and engaged them in follow-up research projects in their home countries. Participants reconvened to present their research findings at a final Synthesis Workshop in Geneva, Switzerland, in May 2005 held in conjunction with the International Workshop on Climate Prediction and Agriculture: Advances and Challenges. 

Key publications from the CLIMAG project include:

• Special Issue of the Journal, Climate Research, “Advances in applying climate prediction to agriculture.” Open Access at: http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/cr/v33/n1/, made possible due to generous offered by the publisher, Inter Research, and with contribution from the three sponsoring institutions (IRI, WMO, START).
• Climate Prediction and Agriculture, 2007, Sivakumar and Hansen (Eds.), Springer, Berlin.
• Climate Prediction and Agriculture – Proceedings of an International Workshop, 2000, Sivakumar (Ed.), START, Washington, DC.
• Advanced institute on Climate Variability and Food Security – Report, 2003

For more information, contact Jyoti Kulkarni, jkulkarni@start.org