RCMAS Climate+: Enhanced farm advisory for better decision-making under dynamic weather conditions

Rowena Castillo, Jane Girly Balanza, Murat Sartas, Jerom Vila, Maria Angela Barua, Airen Claire Baradas, Mary Anne R. Gutierrez, Jeny Raviz, Alice Laborte, and Jon Hellin. (2023) RCMAS Climate+: Enhanced farm advisory for better decision-making under dynamic weather conditions

The Rice Crop Manager Advisory Service (RCMAS) Climate+ generates climate-adjusted nutrient and crop recommendations to address dynamic weather conditions and potential climate-related risks during the cropping season. It is a link between the RCMAS platform, https://rcm.da.gov.ph/ and the Agro-climatic Advisory Portal (ACAP), https://amia-cis.github.io via applications programming interface (API). The RCMAS uses the 6-month seasonal and 10-day weather forecasts from the ACAP to formulate agro-advisories aiming reduce crop loss due to climate risks such as floods and drought. RCMAS Climate+ upgrades the existing RCMAS platform with pre-season and mid-season climate-related recommendations, such as adjustments to date of sowing, fertilizer application timing in response to floods or droughts during the crop growth period and (2) real-time or near-real-time climate information dissemination to farmers, which could enable better decision-making under dynamic climate conditions. The agro-advisories are provided to farmers through the one page printout and/or SMS.