By Josiah Mpofu

The International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and The Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centres (CGIAR) have developed the Zambia Drought Management system (ZADMS) that is aimed at ensuring the resilience of agricultural production and food security in Zambia.

Agriculture Permanent Secretary Green Mbozi says the satellite-based online initiative is meant to provide farmers, agricultural extension officers, and water resources authorities with information that will help them manage drought.

Mr Mbozi also added that the Smart Drought intervention will help the Ministry of Agriculture in providing all the information needed to effectively manage floods and dry spells that have hampered agricultural development in the country.

“ZADMS is a satellite-based online resource that provides farmers, extension workers, and agriculture as well as water resources authorities with the information needed to forecast, monitor, and manage drought. Particularly the online system provides sub-seasonal and seven-day weather forecasts.  The tool indicates when drought is present and the level of severity and suggests district-level agricultural contingency plans that can be put into action,” Mr Mbozi explained.

He said the weather information can be accessed using the online tool by anyone with a phone or computer that is connected to the internet.

“In the past there have been difficulties in locating, accessing, and having the computing power to analyse weather and agricultural data, thereby making drought monitoring a slow and costly process. The ZADMS overcomes this challenge by presenting all the data required for monitoring and managing drought through a single portal, which is freely accessible to anyone with a desktop computer and internet access,” Mr Mbozi said.

Mr Mbozi further stated that users can monitor past drought frequency and severity as well as assess current drought conditions in order to support the development of drought management measures.

“The system has triggers set for predefined conditions to indicate the level of severity reached (moderate severe or extreme). These can be used to support drought declaration and contingency planning. Users first select the region of interest and then choose from drought prediction, drought monitoring, and drought decision support,” Mr Mbozi disclosed.

He disclosed that the government was promoting more initiatives that are aimed at increasing resilience to climate change and ensuring agricultural productivity, thereby enhancing national and household food and nutrition security.

“In Zambia drought is a recurring problem, over the past three decades, an increasingly variable climate has brought higher temperatures, lower rainfall, and more frequent droughts and floods. The periods 1991-1992, 2015-2016, 2019-2020, and 2021-2022 brought particularly damaging dry spells that affected millions of people with crop failures, food and water shortages, livestock deaths, and reduced Gross Domestic Product (GDP),” Mr Mbozi revealed.

Mr Mbozi said in a statement during the official launch of the ZADMS initiative in Lusaka.

And CGIAR Representative Ana Maria Lobguerrero said the organization remains committed to recommend favourable policies and innovations that will help harness the economic, environmental, and nutritional power of the agriculture sector in Zambia.

Dr Lobguerrero emphasised the need for agricultural stakeholders to work together in generating technologies that will help in addressing issues of climate change.

She further noted that there is a need to strengthen drought early warning systems in Zambia in order to build resilience among smallholder farmers and improve their livelihood.

Dr Lobguerrero disclosed that drought frequently affects more than two billion people living in the world’s drylands which extends across 41 percent of the earth’s land surface.

According to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, there were 338 disasters caused by drought between 2000 and 2019 globally compared to 263 between 1980 and 1999.

Strong partnerships between governments and multiple Organisations is key in developing new satellite based drought monitoring tools that are aimed at addressing the social environmental and economic consequences of climate change, thereby building resilient farming systems in Zambia and the world over.