Science Field Shops: An Innovative Agricultural Extension Approach for Adaptation to Climate Change, Applied with Farmers in Indonesia

Abstract

For implementation of climate change adaptation in communities on the islands of Java and Lombok, Indonesia, a new extension approach was designed and carefully further developed while establishing it. It is called “Science Field Shops (SFSs)”. In these “Shops”, farmers, scientists/scholars and (where possible, so ideally) local extension officers meet to discuss and solve vulnerabilities and actual local problems expressed by farmers. In such context, agricultural extension is defined best as: “bringing new knowledge to farmers” and this is coordinated at these SFSs.

We use SFSs to temporarily bridge the gap in availability and training of extension intermediaries by using farmer facilitators (FFs). Farmers are confused by consequences of climate change and want answers on questions that are related to local climate problems but also many other issues in growing their crops, among which rice is most important. Giving and discussing answers and predictions demand real dialogues in an agrometeorological learning approach to response farming.

Farmers start to believe in their attempts to understand and reduce yield differences with the past and between them, by actively learning about consequences of climate change and how we can jointly fight them in such and otherwise changing environments. Anthropology and climatology are combined.

Appendix

Some examples of climate change related questions of Indramayu farmers (2011–2014) and our answers [Examples of farmer questions and our replies from before 2011 may be found in Winarto and Stigter (2011).]

2011: By measuring rainfall only, can we determine the weather without measuring air temperature?

Answer 1: In the tropics, air temperature is much less variable in space and much more logically (and predictably) varying in time than rainfall. Over one season it is hardly influencing yields in the lowland tropics while rainfall and rainfall distribution in space and time are all determining. So measuring temperature is not necessary on-farm. The most determining for rice is the night minimum temperature but also that one hardly is very different over a season as far as influence on yields are concerned.

However, what is important is to keep track of the consequences of global warming over time. The night minimum temperatures have risen over the last decades and this is ongoing. The time will not be far that this will influence rice yields negatively if it not already has started to do so. So in the long run temperature in tropical lowlands, such as the Indonesian coastal areas, will negatively influence rice yields and it would be wise to diversify agriculture before this is doing real damage.

2011: In this situation of global warming, what are its effects on food crops? If there are some effects/implications on food crops, what are the rules for planting: should we move ahead or delay planting in relation to pranatamangsa (the Javanese cosmology)?

Answer 2: In Java and on Bali, one of the issues is a later start of the rainy seasons. Ideally Farmer or Climate Field Schools should be established with collaboration of Universities/Research Institutes/Weather Services in which well-trained facilitators (farmers or extension intermediaries) can discuss with farmers what is the best approach just before, during and just after the rainy season or seasons, making use of available information from the past or the present, if any. But measuring the rainfall on-farm and observing the consequences is part of that School approach, as well as water management by various means: dykes, ridges, ponds, drainage, staggered planting, changing varieties, changing crops etc.

As to pranatamangsa (the Javanese cosmology), it is likely that new rules would have to be derived but that these rules would not be valid for a long time. Creating a higher flexibility into the farming/cropping systems, more diversification, may be expected to be more successful.

2012: Can we solve or prevent the uncertainty of weather?

Answer 3: Only by improving response farming, which means to be better prepared for uncertainties and calamities, by being ready for changing planned decisions, can we fight uncertainties, but they cannot be prevented.

Of course, if we would be able to reduce greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, we would at least prevent ever increasing uncertainties!

2012: When we measure rainfall, can we then predict what is going to happen following the rainfall measurement?

Answer 4: No. Measuring rainfall daily over long numbers of years has two advantages:

• if done together with observations of the consequences in the agro-ecosystem(s) of the fields where the rains were measured, farmers can more easily understand the connections with the rains and therefore can make decisions more easily;

• by noting down the data and making graphs, farmers can see the differences between years but also the similarities between years! If you make averages of two, three, four etc. years, on a day by day, week by week and month by month basis, you can see whether the actual rainfall of the ongoing season is clearly larger or smaller than or rather similar to these averages. That increases the power of decision making, knowing the history of that decision making over the years. Additionally, simple climate predictions can also help in such decision making.

[We can discuss the recent case of the dry season of 2012 to illustrate this.]

2013. Is it true that uncertain changes in weather (rain/hot) could induce diseases on people/human? What are the causal factors?

Answer 5: These changes are not uncertain as far as temperature is concerned but they are uncertain as to rains and their distributions. Such changes as due to global warming (causing climate change) could induce more virulent diseases on people/animals/plants that have themselves survived these changes. This means that climate change is not only influencing people/animals/plants/trees but also organisms with which they interact. Examples for Indonesia could be malaria and dengue fever becoming more serious because the mosquitos like the warmer water to breed.

2013: Usually in the rainy season, in December (month 12) and January (month 1), also in February, there are lots of rains and wind. Farmers used to name it as “wet season”, but why in this rainy season of 2012/2013 there are only winds and lack of rains, even at the generative stage (pregnancy)? Now, there are lots of “bacterial leaf blight” infestations, though we apply enough fertilizers? (especially in Kalensari village, Widasari district) Why?

Answer 6: The rainy season of 2012/2013 is a so called ENSO-neutral period, which means that there is no El Niño nor a La Niña period that gives its climate signal. In such periods it is, among others, the convection above the western Pacific that determines rainfall. So, the rains should be somewhere from the lower end to the higher end of normal and this is difficult to forecast for Indonesia as a whole and for a certain place in Indonesia in particular. This convection changed character over the months. The skill of the forecast suffers. I really have to see the rainfall figures from all places first. What is of particular importance is the rainfall distribution that determines the periods of leaf wetness (necessary for rice blast to spread).

For the bacterial blight (= rice blast) see the answer to the previous question. Fertilizers can even be too much and not too little in this case. The reason of the rice blast we have to discuss with experience of the past. Temperatures becoming higher could be involved. We also have to get advice on previous rice blast attacks.

2014: Why will the dry season start early?

Answer 7: Be careful, the seasonal scenario is a prediction expressed as probabilities. By the first week of March 2014, the general situation in the atmosphere for Indonesia showed reduced convection in the higher layers of the atmosphere. There were also developments of variations in the temperature of the tropical eastern ocean surface in the Pacific that have taught us that an El Niño might come into existence during the northern hemisphere summer. Also by experience we know that this means drought conditions for Indonesia and that made us conclude that the dry season might well be starting early. By early April the predictions were even stronger and the chances of an El Niño starting in June were even rated higher.

2014: Why are the rains at present different from the old days?

Answer 8: The global warming also applies to the atmosphere as a whole that therefore can hold more water vapour, which leads to heavier rains in general. However, these atmospheric processes have also changed in the sense that the atmosphere takes longer to produce such rains. So we end up with more dry days and heavier rains in the on average lower number of rainy days. Rainfall measurements at various places have confirmed this. Because of the additional increasing variability of rainfall patterns, we do not recognize the seasons that we knew.