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The GEF-funded project "Strengthening agro-climatic monitoring and information systems to the adaptation to climate change and food security in Lao PDR" (SAMIS project) is on-going since nearly five years. The project is implemented by FAO and it is leaded by the DMH in MONRE, in collaboration with the DALaM in MAF.

Other participants to the activities include at MONRE the Department of Climate Change and in MAF the NAFRI, the Plant Protection Center, and the Department of Planning and Cooperation.

The project steering committee Meeting was organized in the morning, while the LaCSA anniversary took place at the Don Palace Hotel at 14.00h

The meeting was opened by H.E. Mr Chanthanet Boulapha, Vice-Minister MONRE, who highlighted how “the data produced in LaCSA can provide valuable information beyond the agricultural sector, and they are easy to access and user friendly”. H.E. Mr Kikeo Singnavong, Vice-Minister MAF, said that “LaCSA local level application by farmer will potentially increase sustainable crop production and will facilitate the reaching of the agricultural targets of the NSEDP”. For the UN, Ms Sara Sekkenes, UN Resident Coordinator, presented her remarks stating “information such as the ones available in LaCSA can contribute to the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework targets because they potentially will improve farmers' livelihood and rural population resilience”.

After three years of on ground application, the LaCSA has become an established reality in the digital agro-meteorological system of Lao PDR.

LaCSA has already been outreached to more than 110.000 farmers in the country, by projects of the UN Agencuies and beyond. LaCSA have been disseminate to Farmers groups, loudspeakers, or school posters. This is without considering weekly TV broadcast, Facebook, and radios.

In order to further expand the correct use of the LaCSA tools, Food Agriculture Organization (FAO), Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) together with Department of Meteorology and Hydrology (DMH), Ministry of Natural Resource and Environment (MONRE) have produced the Training Manual Agrometeorology for Agricultural Extension Officers in LAO PDR is now public online though both web and mobile application. FAO hopes that with the use of such booklet, available both in English and Lao languages, any development partner will be able to use the tool independently from FAO.

In addition, three years application and lessons learned have been presented by the international experts by International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), who also produced the booklet titled “Delivery of climate services to last mile users: challenges and opportunities”.

Based on these results, around 78% of the farmers in the project targeted villages have been listening the weather news in LaCSA using loudspeakers. The study had demonstrated that of the listeners, 85% of the farmers have changed their farmer’s practices thanks to LaCSA. This means that farmers used more innovative fertilizers or pest control practices, or they changed the crop varieties they planted, or tailored the irrigation process. This demonstrate that LaCSA can easily be used as a complement information for an extension service.

From the IT point of view, the web site has been continuously producing weekly and monthly bulletins since three years. An app is available both for Android and Apple, and using GPS location, farmers can get directly to the agro-meteorological recommendations related to their location. Recently, drought advisory function has been added, and the flood advisory will come this year.

Co-production of farmers recommendation is not a new things in agro-meteorology, with African country at the forefront of this. The National Agricultural and Forestry Research in statute (NAFRI) has continued to upload new crop recommendation regularly.  The Plant Protection Center has recently published the automatic crop pest and disease alerts in LaCSA.

However, LaCSA goes one step beyond. As a new item at global level, the LaCSA is now been tested for the so-called “citizen data”, which is a tool that is already online and allows DONRE, DAFOs and mostly importantly farmers to automatically upload information about the crop cycle, which is being managed by the Department of Agricultural Land Management (DALaM) that is the main MAF SAMIS partner.

Additional Information

The LaCSA is financed by the FAO’s GEF-funded project "Strengthening agro-climatic monitoring and information systems to the adaptation to climate change and food security in Lao PDR" (SAMIS project)  https://www.fao.org/in-action/samis and by the CIAT, International Center for Tropical Agriculture https://ciat.cgiar.org/ De-RISK project.

The LaCSA system is available at www.lacsa.net and in the Apple and Android store.

Regular updates available on the Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/samisdmh.