WHARF:

World Hunger Alleviation through Response Farming

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Daily Rainfall Data: A Global Treasure Trove

In San Francisco it was the fires initiated by the 1906 earthquake. In Djibouti it was 1988 vintage rats inhabiting the shed where the records were temporarily stored. In Somalia government buildings housing these and other essential records were recently sacked and burned during the fighting, which still continues. Imagine the records in Rwanda, and very soon if not already, Burundi. In other places and times, and perhaps again today or tomorrow, these and other ill forces will obliterate major portions of the worlds most costly, painstakingly gathered, and comprehensive database - daily rainfall records. Oops! Now it may be Zaire and the Congo! And how about records in Angola and Mozambique?

This very morning and every morning for the past century or more, workers in virtually every village and hamlet throughout the world - come rain or come shine - have trekked religiously to their designated observatories to record rainfall over the past 24 hours, along with other atmospheric phenomena important to our well being. Just think for a moment of the immensity, uniqueness and cost of that activity.

When weather measurement began it was largely to meet the needs of military planners and seafaring folk. It got a great boost when aviation became part of our lives - creating a serious need for information about immediate weather conditions on a broad scale. Surprisingly, little meteorological data gathering effort has ever been aimed at providing guidance for farmers in their efforts to fill our needs for food and fiber. Yet the system which has and will continue to feed the world's masses is totally dependent on the vagaries and uncertainty of rainfall. Now, several billion people later, pressure is intensifying on both the land and farmers to produce at higher unit levels.

The reality is that in all but the driest farming areas, crop yields are limited by water shortage only in the worst drought years. They fall far below the potential in better rainfall years - most often due to low soil fertility. But commercial fertilizers are out of economic reach of most of the worlds farmers, and credit sources are scared off by the high level of risk inherant in rainfall variability and uncertainty. Response Farming can reduce that risk to acceptable levels, so that farmers will not be afraid to purchase the inputs required to boost yields, and lenders will not be afraid to lend.

At this time we perpetuate a `1-ton' or subsistence agriculture in which natural regeneration of soil fertility limits yields of basic food grains to approximately one metric ton per hectare, or 900 lb/ac. This provides only the minimum food needs of the farm family, relegating them to perpetual poverty without hope of betterment. With population growth, higher unit yields are essential, not only to escape poverty but outright starvation.

The worldwide network of daily rainfall records holds the key for improving this situation. In a sense many have recognized this and massive efforts are underway to collect and permanently store the data at several levels. These include the USA National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, regional blocs such as the CILSS countries of West Africa (AGRHYMET Program), other countries such as Australia, States, Institutes, etc.

But some of the best funded and most influential agencies and institutions have adopted a seriously flawed policy of storing only summarized data such as monthly or ten-day totals, rather than the original daily data. This policy is defended by the following arguments:

Unfortunately, summarized rainfall data are not up to the task of improving world agriculture, and neither are statistically regenerated data. Lack of understanding of this fact has created a very great danger that the essential original data will be discarded or simply allowed to molder away in the mistaken belief that it is no longer needed.

It is undeniable that the task of collecting, quality checking and storing daily rainfall data worldwide is more laborious and costly than for summarized data. However, neither costs nor labor involved even begin to compare to the investment already sunk (and that being sunk every day) into this irreplacable resource. Today's computers have all the power and memory capacity to easily handle all the data we can gather. Once the data are banked, there are no further monetary or labor costs.

Improvements in agricultural production can only come about when all the risks associated with rainfall behavior are fully understood. Water shortage is only one of these. Another is the duration of the rainy period. Still others involve rainfall frequencies, intensities, and probabilities of prolonged wet or dry spells within the rainy period

Regenerated data do not provide a detailed factual account which can be directly compared to crop performance histories. Neither will they accurately represent small but agriculturally important climate changes which are constantly taking place within the greater trends

It is only now, for the first time in history, computers have given us the power to deeply study and understand these phenomena, and turn the findings to the service of mankind. Please do not let our treasure trove of daily rainfall data drain away just at the moment its promise is ready for fulfillment.



April, 1990: Mr. M. d'Alvarenga, Director, National Meteorological Service, Guinea-Bissau, shows rainfall record storage room to Evaluation Team Member Gerard de Bruijn. This is typical around the world - inaccessible data and subject to loss (G-B records have since been computerized in the AGRHYMET Program).



Niamey, Niger, 1990: AGRHYMET regional center for 9 Sahelian countries - data entry specialist Simon van Donk enters daily rainfall data in CLICOM for member countries.
 

WHARF GLOBAL AGROMETEOROLOGICAL DATA BANK (Primarily Daily Rainfall Records)

USA - All States/Territories/Possessions (CD Disks to 1992)

LATIN AMERICA
North America
- Mexico, 4 locations - (E1973:L1990)
South America
-Argentina, 1 location (E 1911:L1990)
- Brazil, 10 locations: (E1920: L1981)
- Colombia, 36 locations: (E1930: L1981)
- Ecuador, 2 locations: (E1962: L1981)
- Guatemala, 1 location: (E1932: L1971)
- Paraguay, 1 location: (E1959: L1980)
- Peru, 1 location: (E1960: L1981)

NEAR EAST
Mediterranean
- Cyprus, 4 locations: (E1916: L1978)
North Africa
- Morocco, 2 locations: (E1911: L1983)
Arabia
- Jordan, 17 locations: (E1923: L1988)
- Yemen, 9 locations: (E1968: L1992)

ASIA
Sub-Continent
- India, 19 locations: (E1901: L1987)
- Nepal, 1 location: (E1957: L1984)
- Pakistan, 1 location: (E1968: L1986)
- Sri Lanka, 13 locations: (E1869: L1999)
Far East
- China, 1 location (E1981: L1989)
- Okinawa, 1 location: (E1953: L1972)
- Philippines, 2 locations: (E1953: L1989)

AFRICA
East Africa
- Eritrea, 1 location: (E1950: L1988)
- Ethiopia, 18 location: (E1943: L2000)
- Kenya, 10 locations: (E1926: L1987)
- Tanzania, 1 location: (E1932: L1998)
Southern Africa
- Malawi, 2 locations (E1979: L1996)
- South Africa, 4 locations: (E1903: L1989)
- Zimbabwe, 4 locations: (E1952: L1991)
West Africa
- Burkina Faso, 5 locations (E1902: L1989)
- Mali, 4 locations (E1896: L1989)
- Niger, 5 locations (E1905: L1989)
- Nigeria, 2 locations (1922: L1975)
- Senegal, 5 locations (E1872: L1987)

AUSTRALIA
- Australia, 7 locations: (E1886: L1995)

NOTES:
a) USA data covers all official meteorological stations (thousands)
b) E&L denote earliest & latest years of data in WHARF files
c) Data files are stored in WHARFDAT format for retrieval, output and analysis using the WHARFDAT and WHARF programs. Data files are exported in this form or as ASCII files

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