4 - core readings.

Seasonal climate forecast applications: 2 fellas, 1 from zimbabwe and 1 from boston have been using seasonal forecasts in order to aid Zimbabwean farmers with when to sew, what to sew and generally maximising their potential based on predictions for the entire season. South African Regional Climate Outlook Forum (SARCOF) aims to utilize the predictions to improve the food security of the nation. It is important that any reports aiming to communicate with farmers and aid understanding in order to better the foood security must be fit for purpose, information must be relavent on the scale for which it is intended and communicated in a way that doesnt distort or destroy the message. six causes of effectiveness: credibility, legitimacy, scale, cognition, procedures and available choices.

Zimbabwean Example: Credibility: as Zimbabwean culture dictates a mainly deterministic way of thinking, so if data/suggestions are presented in a probabilistic fashion the audience is likely to question credibility. Furthermore the medium messages are communicated through can affect credibility, if someones predictions are wrong they are not credible anymore so people will not pay attention to potentially right predictions that could increase wellbeing. Legitimacy is disproportionately benefiting a particular group of the population. working with pre existing local religious forecasters in Zimbabwe could increase the legitimacy of predictions. Scale refers to issues where the local impacts of a forecasts are not made clear, only predictions for entire provinces or national are given and are not as useful or convincing to local populations. Cognition can be overcome as an issue by either educating the population or simplifying the information so that it is understood correctly and can be acted upon. Procedures become an issue when the normal channels for delivering/verifying/acting upon reports are too long or poorly timed. In Zimbabwe once decisions had been made most farmers had already purchased seeds and were restricted on how they could act on information. Choices can impact the uptake of suggestions from reports because sometimes farmers are only interested in surviving rather than maximising yield, only because they have tough lives not lack of ambition.

Patt & Gwata 2002