Objectives: To devise an effective mechanism to disseminate climate information directly to the farmers, in a format that will be easily understood and applied in their planting/replanting and harvesting decision making.

This involves training the climate users from the sugar cane industry to improve understanding of climate information. Concurrently, to devise a mechanism for effective dissemination of climate information to the farmers during crucial decision making periods of the sugar cane crop cycle. It also foreseen that the pilot study will not only open the communications between the sugar sector and the meteorological service but will strengthen relationship between the organisations. Ultimately, this communication channel will provide ideal monitoring process through feedback from the sugar cane industry and vice versa for future climate information enhancements.

Outcomes: A two-day workshop on Raising Awareness on Linking Climate Forecasting and Decision Making Practice for the Fiji sugar industry took place in Lautoka, Fiji in mid-March 2005. About 60 personnel (mostly field officers) from the sugar industry attended the workshop.

The second part of the pilot project involves an inclusion of a crop model for the Fiji sugarcane industry. The primary objective of the proposed research is to increase understanding of the inter-linkages between climate variability (including on intra-seasonal, seasonal and interannual timescales), regional climate change and farm scale inputs and thus the productivity of sugarcane in Fiji. This involves the training of the Fiji sugar researchers and FMS staff in the use of APSIM -Sugarcane and its linking to climate predictors. A two-day APSIM Training Workshop took place at the Fiji Meteorological Services, Nadi, Fiji on 18th to 19th July 2006.

The crop growth model called Agricultural Production systems SIMulator (APSIM; Keating et al. 2003) is currently the only cropping systems model that is capable of simulating a wide range of farm management options (e.g., management of crop residue, irrigation and nitrogen fertiliser) in sugarcane systems (Thorburn et al. 2005).

Outcomes under Phase 2:

A two-day workshop for the sugarcane research officers, extension officers, field officers, and councils was held from the 12th to 13th December 2007 in Lautoka, Fiji. This was followed by two in-country Climate and Observer Training workshops for the Fiji Sugarcane Corporation staff by the Fiji Meteorological Service in February 2008.