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Early warning indicators 









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    Booklet
    Developing an indicator of price anomalies as an early warning tool: A compound growth approach 2017
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    The food price surge in global markets in 2007-2008 and then again in 2011, has spurred a lot of interest in creating an early warning indicator to detect abnormal growth in prices in consumer markets in the developing world, where advance warning of an impending food crisis can be critical. In these countries, on an early warning basis, sometimes market prices are the only source of information available to assess the severity of a local shock to either access or availability of food. Because p rices summarize information held by a large number of economic agents, including their expectations regarding likely short-term developments in supply and demand, they are ideal to use as the basis of an early warning indicator. The objective of this paper is to present the methodology for an indicator of price anomalies recently developed by the Global Information Early Warning System of FAO that can be used to identify abnormal price changes. The FAO/GIEWS indicator of price anomalies (IPA) re lies on a weighted compound growth rate that accounts for both within year and across year price growth. The main advantage of the IPA is its’ simplicity. It can be used in different markets without concern as to whether or not the market year has been well defined. The indicator directly evaluates growth in prices over a particular month over many years, which allows one to answer the question of whether or not a small change in price is normal for any particular period.
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    Book (stand-alone)
    Community-based fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda) monitoring, early warning and management
    Training of trainers manual
    2019
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    Fall Armyworm (FAW) (Spodoptera frugiperda) was first reported in Africa in 2016. Since then, it has become a very destructive invasive pest in sub-Saharan Africa. Its main impact is on maize crops and affects different stages of growth, from early vegetative to physiological maturity. In several countries affected by FAW attack, farmer responses have been predominantly based on the use of chemical pesticides. It is important to ensure the safe use of such pesticides by farmers, but also to promote and deploy an integrated pest management (IPM) package against FAW. Farmers need the right advice, tools and resources to sustainably manage FAW. This manual provides farmers and extension service providers easy-to-use information on how they can manage FAW in smallholder cropping systems. It provides information about modules for training trainers in FAW pest diagnostics, scouting, management and data collection. The objective of this training is to provide trainers and farmers with the knowledge and skills that will enable them to identify FAW and differentiate it from other similar pests; understand the life cycle of FAW; and, know how to monitor and manage the pest. This manual gives trainers the information they need in order to support and sustain an IPM approach for FAW management in their communities. The manual is modular and allows for updates in the future as more knowledge and solutions to manage FAW become available.
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    Brochure, flyer, fact-sheet
    After-Action Review of the Early Warning Messaging Activity under the Scaling up Early Warning and Anticipatory Action for Agriculture and Food Security Project (EWAA) in Zimbabwe 2022
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    Early warning messaging has been crucial to protect smallholder farmers’ crops, livestock and assets, as well as livelihoods. Collaborating with the government of Zimbabwe’s Meteorological Services department which provided updated forecasts for the targeted areas on a regular basis, and FAO facilitated the broadcast of these messages through various formats managed by the Ntepe-Manama Community Radio station. During the 2021/22 agricultural season, farmers and households in the target wards received early warning and weather forecast messages twice a week to coincide with the Meteorological Services Department’s three-day forecasting period. Early warning and short-range forecasting information was broadcast to farmers in Gwanda, parts of Matobo and parts of Beitbridge. The early warning messages were transmitted through the four local languages that are indigenous to the district; Sotho, Babirwa, Venda and Ndebele. This ensured that weather messages were simple enough for better understanding by the recipients. The messages disseminated provided information on the weather conditions for the following three days. When extreme weather conditions were predicted, early warning information and corresponding advisories were broadcast to enable farmers to activate their coping strategies, and implement other pre-emptive actions to protect crops, livestock and assets. An After-Action Review process was conducted to assess the impact of the messaging on the targeted farmers and derive recommendations for further improvement of the activity. The outcome showed that the messages influenced the farmers' short-term farming choices.

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