This study provides some guidelines for Dutch private and public parties on opportunities and constraints in developing agro-meteorological services in Sub-Saharan African countries. We focused on agro-meteorological services where there was evidence that weather and climate information was combined with agronomic centered advices for farmers. The potential for developing these services was analysed from the perspective of the institutional, technical and business environment. Several business development "pathways" were suggested varying from a public orientated business model (B2G), to public-private partnerships with an opening towards commercial partnerships (B2B, B2C), a balanced role of private and public actors, and the "right" local partners also in the perspective of combining more services ("bundling").

In this study the possibilities of integrating ERS scatterometer-derived soil moisture in the Crop Growth Monitoring System (CGMS) are explored. This remotely sensed soil moisture is used to calculate drought stress in grains of barley for a Russian-Ukrainian study area. The results are compared with drought stress based on the rainfall-driven water balance and with regional yields statistics of barley. The use of ERS scatterometer in CGMS seems promising, especially when additional input data, such as sowing dates and crop parameters, are improved and conversions of ERS scatterometer data into soil moisture are more specified for different soils and seasonal variations.

De systemen zijn geconfronteerd met vragen uit de praktijk.

andere functies.

Bij Alterra is veel kennis aanwezig om de gebruikswaarde of geschiktheid van gronden te bepalen. Deze kennis over bodemgeschiktheid voor akker-, weide- en tuinbouw is opgenomen in een digitaal kennissysteem, BODEGA. BODEGA maakt het mogelijk om op een gebruikersvriendelijke, inzichtelijke en interactieve wijze kwalitatieve landevaluatiekennis (beslisregels, classificaties) te ontwerpen, beheren, tonen, wijzigen en toepassen.