Asian experts tackle El Niño phenomenon

LOS BAÑOS, Laguna , Philippines  — Scientists and experts from 11 Asian countries will convene here on March 8-10 in an Asian workshop on the El Niño phenomenon.

The three-day scientific forum will be held under the auspices of the government-hosted, Los Baños-based Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization-Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEAMEO SEARCA) and United Nations-Food and Agriculture Organization (UN-FAO).

Opening program speakers are Dr. David Dawe of FAO-Romeo and SEARCA Director Dr. Gil C. Saguiguit Jr.

SEARCA is one of the 19 “centers for excellence” of SEAMEO, an inter-government treaty organization founded in 1965 to foster cooperation among Southeast Asian nations in the fields of education, science, and culture.

The workshop forms part of the “FAO-SEARCA Research Study on the Impacts of El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events on Cereal Production, Area, and Yield in Asia”.

The joint project will fund a research, a conference, and publication of monographs on the impacts of ENSO events on cereal (rice, wheat, maize) production, area, and yield in 10 to 12 Asian countries.

The research aims to extend the number of countries and crops covered in the current literature, to improve cross-country compatibility by using a standard methodology, to increase market transparency by providing publicly available estimates of ENSO impacts, and to assist in the preliminary identification of coping strategies.

“There is existing published literature that shows strong impacts of ENSO events on rice production in India, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka,” FAO and SEARCA reported.

The research will be conducted by SEARCA with active participation of collaborating researchers. The work will contribute to FAO strategic objectives.

It will cover 11 Asian countries: Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Two workshops (one inception and one final) have been programmed to be organized under the project.

The inception workshop, scheduled on March 8-10 here, will summarize important country researches pertaining to the impact of climate on production of rice, wheat, and maize.

To present country reports are representatives of the 11 nations to be covered by the research project.

The conference will also discuss the choice of appropriate locational disaggregation (province, region) at which to conduct the analysis of the impacts of ENSO on production, area, and yield of the three cereal crops.

Likewise, it will discuss the availability ad quality of rainfall data with respect to location and length of time-series available.

Moreover, it will examine the impacts of El Niño events by looking at by-country graphs of seasonal (as opposed to annual) production, area, and yield of rice, what, and maize for as long a time period as possible.

The participants will also decide and agree on the project’s overall work plan and time schedule.

In undertaking the project, FAO and SEARCA averred that climate change is likely to increase the frequency of extreme whether events and the El Niño Southern Oscillation is probably the most important extreme whether event that affects the agriculture sector.