Enhancing Agriculture Resilience through Sub-Seasonal to Seasonal Forecasting

August 19, 2022

Weather Impact, in partnership with Wageningen Environmental Research (WEnR) and Digital Innovation for Impact (DI4I), is actively supporting the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) and the Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD) in implementing sub-seasonal to seasonal (S2S) forecasts. This collaborative effort aims to establish a comprehensive data stream, bridging weather model data with agronomical advisory services. The initiative is a pivotal component of the Agro-Meteorological Information Systems Development Project (AMISDP), generously funded by The World Bank.

S2S forecasts, spanning a 6-week timeframe, offer valuable insights into weather conditions at a weekly scale. Positioned between conventional short-term forecasts (up to 10 days ahead) and monthly seasonal predictions, S2S forecasts represent the cutting edge of meteorological science and hold immense potential for various sectors. Weather Impact is actively assisting BMD and DAE in harnessing the power of these forecasts, aiming to unlock their benefits for the farming community. These forecasts can address critical questions for farmers, such as the onset of the monsoon or indications of extreme rainfall events.

This collaborative project comprises two primary components:

Assessment of S2S Models: The project involves a thorough evaluation of S2S models within the context of Bangladesh. This evaluation is essential for tailoring forecasts to the region’s unique characteristics, ultimately enhancing their accuracy and reliability.

Development of Agronomical Advisory Products: By co-developing farm management advisories, this project equips farmers with more time to respond to weather conditions. These advisories empower farmers to make informed decisions about when to initiate, postpone, or adapt their agricultural activities. The newly developed advisories will undergo rigorous field testing and validation.

One of the core pillars of this initiative is to ensure its sustainability. This involves building the capacity of key stakeholders. Weather Impact and WEnR will provide training to BMD and DAE officials, equipping them with the skills and knowledge needed to utilize the system effectively. Furthermore, a standardized operational procedure (SOP) will be established in collaboration with both BMD and DAE. This SOP will define the roles and responsibilities of each organization in the S2S data chain, ensuring a seamless and efficient workflow.

The project will run till December 2023 and the forecast generation system has already been transferred and handed over to the Bangladesh Meterological Department (BMD).

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Rokaiya Tasnim Tithi

Rokaiya is the head of partnership and resource mobilization in Dii. She has 5 years of experience in Business development and organizational strategic outreach. She is adept in development communication, grants management, marketing and growth management. She excels in developing quality content, i.e. systematically standardized reports, proposals, presentations along with formal publications. In addition, she is skilled in producing rapid information, developing compelling needs and impact-focused content for donor/partner/organizational communication materials.

Mohammad Mahabub Hasan

Head of Finance and Operations
Full bio coming soon…

S A M Saifur Rahman

Director
Full bio coming soon…

Noshin Tasnim Othoi

Senior Research Associate
Full bio coming soon…

Abu Ahamed Sabbir

A young agricultural economist, Abu Ahamed Sabbir, a graduate from Bangladesh Agricultural University has kicked off his professional career with Digital Innovation for Impact as a project associate. He is passionate about learning and doing research on economics related with agriculture, production, resource and environment, food system and rural development. He has experience working in different research projects of his university as a research assistant, data enumerator etc. He is good at questionnaire design,apps based questionnaire design (KoboToolbox, ODK, Surveycto), statistical analysis, data management and visualization, scientific paper writing etc.

Bhupoti Chandro Sarkar

Bhupoti Chandro Sarkar is currently working as an operations coordinator in Digital Innovation for Impact where he is mostly responsible for overall program designing, monitoring, implementation, preparing reports on expenses and office budgets. He has to keep track of field activities with partner organizations. He has over 8 years of experience working with various organizations as an operations coordinator, implementation officer, field implementation manager, and ICT field coordinator. Having all these professional experiences he has strong expertise in ICT training and implementation, communications, field research, community mobilization, and market development.

Md. Ferdous Hasan Prodhan

Having 14 years of working experience in different projects under multiple dimensions like Market System Development, Livelihoods & Food Security, DRR and Climate Change,Women Economic Empowerment, etc. in many renowned social and development organizations Md. Ferdous Hasan Prodhan is currently working as a consultant in Digital Innovation for Impact. He has strong expertise in Project Management and Implementation considering logical framework/result chain,Budget preparation and Management. Preparing reports, conducting surveys,Impact Study, Questionnaire,Development, Research work, and so on. He has experience working in a GEOPotato project of Agriculture Information service (AIS) under the Ministry of Agriculture which leverages weather data and satellite data for late blight forecasting.

Md Mushfiqul Islam

Md Mushfiqul Islam has over ten years of working experience in agricultural development, communication and extension. He is acquainted to work with the Agriculture Information Service (AIS) in a role of a project facilitator which is a part of a government organization. He has two research papers published in ‘International Journal of Research’. He is very adept at facilitating project activities, preparing the action plan and budget of a project, building rapport with stakeholders, providing training to the beneficiaries and others, monitoring and evaluation of the project, and so on.

Kartick Chandra Chakroborty

Kartick Chandra Chakroborty, an expert in the area of agriculture communication and agronomy Kartick Chandra Chakroborty has over thirty years of experience in diversified roles within the Department of Agricultural Extension Bangladesh. As the former Director of the Agriculture Information Service (AIS) under the auspices of the Ministry of Agriculture Bangladesh, he executed all the mass communication strategies and campaigns for the MoA. As a top executive of DAE, he contributed to various national plans and policy formulation. He is also an expert in modern horticultural technology including horticulture-based project implementation, Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), and Integrated Farm Management (IFM). He participated in numerous national and international training programs as an expert.

Dr. Hasan M Abdullah

Dr. Abdullah is an expert in leveraging GIS and Remote sensing for an agricultural context. Dr. Abdullah holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural Science with a major in Environmental Remote Sensing and GIS from the Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Gifu University, Japan. Currently, he is working on a NASA-funded five-year project as an international collaborating expert with Boston University. He is also a Norman E Borlaug International Agriculture Science and Technology fellow at Louisiana State University, funded by the USDA. Dr. Abdullah also worked as a CO-PI with Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute (BARI) for the Development of Geodatabase of Haor Region for Sustainable Intensification of Agriculture in the context of climate change. He has excellent working experience in handling large dataset, database (SQL), satellite image interpretation, weather data interpretation, satellite image processing, GIS analysis and modeling with R, Erdas Imagine, ENVI, eCognition, QGIS, and Arc Info Processing. He has over twenty publications on the intersection of agriculture, forestry, weather, and satellite data.

Dr. Md Abdul Mannan

Bangladesh’s one of the most respected meteorologists, Dr. Mannan has over thirty years of experience in the area of meteorology and weather. As a former Director of the Storm Warning Center (SWC) of the Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD) Dr. Mannan was responsible for generating and disseminating forecasts for major weather events in Bangladesh. He oversaw the operational development, management, and implementation of various weather models that leverage big data, AI, and parallel computing to generate forecast and storm modeling.

Sadman Sadek

Sadman started his career as a software engineer at a subsidiary of intel writing codes to build softwares for Community Healthcare Workers to improve the data collection process. Now Sadman has over a decade of experience in the technology and digital development space and led the implementation of several ICT4D programs across South Asia and Africa valued at more than $8 million. Having a focus on innovation and ICT4D, his project has been recognized and awarded for innovation, social impact, and sustainability by various organizations such as ITU, Digital Empowerment Foundation, and the Bangladesh government. His expertise in strategy, capacity building, human-centered design, digital development principles, and nonprofit business development helped to raise more than $2.5 million worth of funds for the organizations he worked with.