This farmer “planted blind” in a changing climate. A weather app came to his aid

It's a hot, sunny day in Miu, a rural village in south-central Kenya. And 31-year-old Stephen Nzioka works at home on his corn, bean and orange farm. He whistles as he digs and clears the undergrowth.

“I really enjoy working with my hands,” he says through a translator. “It also helps me exercise my body.”

Nzioka comes from a long family of farmers. “Generations back they were all involved in agriculture,” he says. “There was no other option.”

Nzioka started farming at the age of seven. His parents made a small hole and he threw some seeds into it. “That’s how they got me involved,” he says.

For years he applied the teachings of his ancestors to his fields. He planted in the fall during the rainy season and harvested a few months later at the beginning of the dry season. But over the last five or six years, weather patterns have changed, largely due to a changing climate. Nzioka had no way of knowing when it would rain.

“I would be growing my produce,” he says, “and then it wouldn’t rain as expected. And so the harvest will be low and that will be quite difficult because I have invested in planting.”

When a farmer like Nzioka has an unsuccessful harvest, it can mean a whole year of lost income.

“I was planting blind, so I kept guessing and just took risks,” he says.

Like millions of other farmers across Kenya, Nzioka doesn't own a smartphone and so can't easily look up a five-day forecast. And even if he had one, internet connectivity in most remote, rural areas is too spotty to make much of a difference. But he has a basic cell phone that allows him to make and receive calls and text messages. And more than a year ago, Nzioka's fate changed:

His phone starts ringing. He just received a message – the kind he receives weekly now.

“It explains that rain or sunshine can be expected between this time and this time tomorrow,” says Nzioka. Based on the forecast, the message also suggests checking for potential pests, watering or not, fertilizing or not. “And that helps me decide whether I want to plant or not.”

Weather intelligence

The weather information in these texts comes from a non-profit organization called Tomorrow now. “The way it works is that we pull raw weather data from different sources,” says Kenneth Chepkwony, the group’s regional program coordinator.

This information is a mix of satellite data and weather stations on the ground. It's also very local – imagine the landscape divided into squares two and a half miles on a side, each with its own forecast.

This high-resolution data helps create increasingly accurate forecasts and weather models provided by the company Tomorrow.io (of which Tomorrow Now is an independent offshoot). This “ensures farmers have information that is relevant to their operation rather than the entire city,” says Chepkwony.

The data is just information. The goal is to turn it into weather information — something that farmers can actually use to “improve their day-to-day decisions on the farm,” says Campbell Flatter, co-founder and CEO of Tomorrow Now. And that is the job of its government partner, the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO).

“We look at weather information to make short-term forecasts for farmers,” says Salim Kinyimu, director at KALRO. “And then we can arrange a planting date. We really try to make this messaging as simple as possible.”

Later, the messages will provide guidance on when to plant, where to grow which plants, and which varieties of those plants grow best. Almost five million farmers across Kenya are already receiving the weather warnings. On average, Tomorrow Now sees a 7% increase in sales.

The challenges of a changing climate

Farmers across Kenya and beyond are struggling with changing weather and seasons.

“Climate change is damaging our livelihoods, especially considering that agriculture is the backbone of Kenyan society,” says Chepkwony, who grew up west of Nairobi. “It threatens entire economies.” His father was a farmer until he lost entire crops due to unpredictable weather conditions. “Honestly,” says Chepkwony, “I miss seeing him as a farmer because back then I felt he was very fulfilled.”

“There are huge inequalities in weather forecasting around the world,” says Campbell Flatter. “There are about three billion people who are virtually blind to local weather forecasts.”

This is the gap that Tomorrow Now aims to close.

“I think they do a commendable job, but of course, like any other technology, there will always be room for improvement,” says Michael Murigi, a Nairobi-based farmer and founder of Focus wiselya group that promotes drought-tolerant plant varieties and agricultural practices.

“Disseminating weather forecast messages alone may not be very, very useful,” he says, “particularly when dealing with small farmers who have little information and live in remote villages.” Murigi suggests they may need more support from a local agricultural advisor , which helps them, for example, interpret and best respond to the text messages they receive.

A more reliable future

Stephen Nzioka, the farmer, says his crop yield has improved since the program began. “So I would say the messages were very useful,” he says.

This security could make agriculture a more attractive and reliable option for the millions of people living in poverty across the country. “Agriculture in Kenya,” says Kinyimu, “is the key pillar that the government uses as a tool to improve food security and eliminate malnutrition.”

Tomorrow Now hopes to reach 100 million smallholder farmers by the end of the decade. They plan to expand their efforts to Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and elsewhere.

Successful agriculture can also serve as a springboard for families and communities to invest in future generations. “If you can grow enough to not only feed your family but also sell in the market,” says Campbell Flatter, “you have money that you can invest back into your farm, you can rent more land, you can grow more crops, etc. It actually helps farmers lift themselves out of poverty.”

Nzioka is a good example. He was able to use some of his more reliable income to pay for his daughters' elementary school. “The products I sell at the market help them achieve higher levels of education,” he says.

It's a long-term investment in his children's future – an investment made possible by knowing the weather in the next few days.

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