This AICCRA team produces new knowledge and tools that help African farmers prepare for and manage the impacts of climate variability and change, through better information and advice that offer clear choices and options to become more resilient under a changing climate.

The team has two key objectives:

1. Provide better ‘Climate Information Services’ (CIS) - the collating, analysing, packaging and distributing of weather and climate related information to inform decision making
2. Help farmers adopt ‘Climate Smart Agriculture’ (CSA) - making agriculture more productive while adapting to or mitigating the effects of climate change.

Such services empower African farmers to plan investment and adopt farming and agricultural practices that are ‘climate-smart’.

The team’s research provides insights to public bodies and the private sector in Africa, so they can be more effective in targeting efforts to help farmers adopt CIS and CSA.

There are several dimensions to this work:

• Developing new CIS systems
• Creating new tools that help farmers make decisions
• Identify and prioritise CSA technology and practices for different groups of farmers
• Exploring ways to more effectively finance CIS and CSA
• Build and strengthen agriculture data hubs
• Develop visualization tools
• Develop digital services that are inclusive for women, youth and underserved social groups