Assessing long-term rainfall trends and changes in a tropical watershed Brantas, Indonesia: an approach for quantifying the agreement among satellite-based rainfall data, ground rainfall data, and small-scale farmers questionnaires

The agreement between meteorological data and societal perception is essential in supporting a robust policy making and its implementation. In humid tropic watersheds like Brantas, such consensus is important for water resources management and policies. This study exemplifies an effort to understand the long-term rainfall characteristics within the watershed and to build a common link among the differing data sources: CHIRPS rainfall satellite data, rain gauge data, and farmers perceptions. Six rainfall characteristics were derived using statistical measures from the scientific data and then were translated to a series of structured questionnaires given to small-scale farmers. A consensus matrix was built to examine the level of agreement among three data sources, supporting the spatial pattern of the meteorological data and farmers perception. Two rainfall attributes were classified with high agreement, four with moderate and one with low agreement. The agreements and discrepancies of rainfall characteristics were found in the study area. The discrepancies originated from the accuracy in translating scientific measurements to practical meanings for farmers, complexity of the farming system, the nature of phenomena in questions, and farmers' ability to record long-term climatic events. This study shows an implication that a combined approach to link scientific data and societal data is needed to support powerful climate policy making.

Farmer's perception regarding constraints faced in adoption of dairy farming practices in Sindh province, Pakistan

The present study was conducted to explore the farmer's perception regarding constraints faced in adoption of dairy farming practices in Sindh province of Pakistan. The data were collected from 133 project dairy farmers of Pakistan Dairy Development Company (PDDC) and 133 non-PDDC dairy farmers. The constraints were measured with three-point continuum scale. The survey results revealed that on overall basis, technical, financial, and physical constraints, viz., poor conception rate of artificial insemination (AI) in buffaloes, high price of concentrates, high cost of treatment, etc. received higher scores for both groups (PDDC and non-PDDC farmers). In contrast, overall mean scores were relatively low for knowledge (lack of knowledge about proper time of AI/natural service, heat detection, disease control, scientific housing, clean milk production), skills (lack of technical skills regarding fodder conservation and preparation of balanced ration), and lack of financial support by government, etc.; recorded as severe constraints with higher scores for non-PDDC farmers as compared to PDDC farmers. These results indicate that augmenting extension services through PDDC on training and technical know-how is essential to overcome constraints of adoption by farmers who never adopted the practices, while technical, financial, and physical support to farmers are critical for a wider scale, sustained adoption of livestock practices.