We ascribed secondary themes to recurring words and linked sub-codes to them.Third, we connected the secondary themes to the information design and delivery criteria according to their definitions.The farmer-to-farmer WIS was also interactive because farmers discussed their observations about the weather.A section of farmers also mentioned the Radio Ada WIS as interactive.At the beginning of the farming season, lead farmers, AEAs, and a host discussed pertinent questions about the seasonal forecast and farmers’ observations.Afterwards farmers were allowed to phone in and ask questions or contribute.We also found that farmers required forecast information with relevance for decision-making.The relevance of information for decision making relates to information that provides relevant agrometeorological indicators, e.g., onset date, agronomic advisories, market information, and so forth.The agrometeorological indicators are suitable for deciding when to plough, sow, apply agrochemicals, and harvest.We found that the content of the private weather forecaster and the farmer-to-farmer WIS had relevant agrometeorological indicators such as onset date, length of the season, and rainfall amount.The agripreneurs, AEAs, and Radio Ada WIS provided bundled agricultural information such as agronomic advice.The involvement of farmers in creating information and incorporating their feedback was a factor that also enabled the usability of the information.This factor also involves the use of farmers’ feedback to address actual needs.Farmers mentioned that the AEAs, the private weather forecaster, and the Radio Ada WIS elicited their opinions.
We identified that information providers’ respect for local values enhanced the usability of WIS.This factor implies that the WIS has local content and reflects farmers’ practices, values,grow bucket and beliefs.This factor is relevant for WIS usability in farming in the Ada East District because it is an area noted for the production of food crops, vegetables, and some fruits for the urban market.The growing demand for specific food crops in the urban market impedes changes in the cultivation of certain crops in response to a seasonal forecast.Therefore, farmers expected information providers to understand their values, beliefs, social-economic characteristics, and practices to tailor to their context.For example, they required WIS to guide them in selecting a variety of tomatoes suitable for a forecast rather than indicate a complete change in crop production.Farmers attached relevance and trust to WIS delivered continuously and provided outlooks on changes between the season or during the day.They expected information on outlook on intra-seasonal changes, but this rarely occurred, albeit that the WIS of the public TV, the private weather forecaster, GMet online, E-agricultural, agripreneurs, and farmer-to-farmer were continuously delivered daily.The timing/schedule delivery of WIS is relevant for farming in the district, as some farmers showed interest in seasonal rainfall onset date and 1–14-days forecast to determine decision-making, e.g., when to apply fertilisers.Another aspect of the time factor was the strict delivery of information at specified times.With the attachment of schedules to the provision of information, farmers would have made certain decisions before it was delivered.Farmers noted Agripreneurs’ WIS for providing daily information where the expected forecast was stated with terms such as “expect rainfall in the morning, afternoon, or evening.” Farmers also appreciated the private weather forecasters’ information because of the provision of outlooks whenever necessary.Farmers explained that only a few received AEAs’ WIS directly through a home visit, mobile phone calls, workshops, and field demonstrations.Often, the invitation on AEAs’ WIS to farmers to attend workshops and field demonstrations was limited to one member per household or to a lead farmer on the assumption that they would share the information; yet, sometimes, it rarely happens.
With such selection criteria, women, young farmers, and other groups of farmers were prevented from accessing relevant WIS.The private weather forecaster’s WIS was accessible directly to only a few farmers because the provider could not respond to their calls at all times.In the case of Agripreneurs’ WIS, farmers had to subscribe to a short code to receive the information, and this required training or some level of literacy; thus, it was used by a few farmers.Lack of ‘free time’ because of engagement in various social-economic activities affected women’s access to WIS, especially regarding scheduled information delivery on the radio or TV.Further, the accessibility of WIS for diverse groups of farmers was also dependent on the availability of radio, mobile phones, television, internet, and electricity.The absence of language barriers also enhanced the usability of certain WIS.According to farmers, most WIS were provided in English rather than in the Dangbe language, which is spoken in the Ada East District.Hence, some farmers, especially illiterate ones, were limited to using certain WIS like the farmer-to-farmer WIS.Of the ten types of WIS found in the district, only half – the AEA, farmer-to-farmer, Radio Ada, private weather forecaster, and the public radio WIS – were delivered in the local language.When WIS was presented at length, farmers were no longer able to remember all the information.The provision of WIS on rainfall occurrence was best recalled, whereas other aspects such as the level of uncertainty, location, and other expected conditions were rarely remembered.This challenge was attributed to the presentation of the format and the content of the information.The Radio Ada WIS was sometimes communicated in drama, and it was deemed relevant for farming because farmers were able to comprehend the message.Agripreneurs’ and online WIS were presented in formats such as: “rain likely, tomorrow, rain likely,” “above normal,” or “near normal.” The public TV WIS was presented with maps and symbols indicating sunlight, rainfall, cloudy conditions, thunderstorms, etc.The use of symbols was meaningful to farmers, especially the symbol for rain or sunlight.Some WIS was also packaged mostly as numbers and text.
The terminologies used in WIS presentations required some explanations to aid its usability.For example, although Agripreneurs’ WIS was delivered in English.A structured text message was delivered in the same format to help farmers understand.The use of multiple media, including voice-based, call centre facilities, mobile phones, radio, and text for WIS delivery, was considered to enhance or obstruct the usability of WIS.We found that farmers had a clear preference for information received through voice mode: face-toface interaction, telephone calls, or interactive voice response with this particular factor.Some farmers emphasised the importance of the public radio and the Radio Ada WIS, as the radio could be operated with a battery, had wide coverage, was portable, and was also a mobile phone component.The district did not promote the use of interactive voice response and call centre facilities attached to Agripreneurs’ WIS.The two-way WIS delivery mode allowed farmers to ask questions and receive feedback.The delivery of two-way information was considered vital because it enabled farmers to verify their observations and discuss differences in the forecasts with information providers.The farmer-to-farmer, the private weather forecaster, and AEAs’ WIS provided two-way information delivery through mobile phone and face-to face interactions.Accessible level and mode of payment indicate farmers’ preference for prepaid or free access WIS.In some instances, the fee for WIS deterred some farmers from sourcing certain WIS.Except for public TV, public radio, Radio Ada, AEAs, and farmer-to-farmer WIS, which provided free information, other types of WIS involved some form of payment.
Farmers who were willing to pay for WIS mentioned detailed, reliable, accurate, and evidence-based conditions for farming.In the above sections, we analyzed the types of WIS, the factors that affect their usability, and how each WIS met a specific factor.These analyses are summarised in Table 3, with a tick indicating how farmers perceived a specific WIS to have met each factor.In this study, we identified ten types of WIS for farming in the Ada East District, Ghana.On average, a farmer used at least two types of WIS.The farmer-to-farmer WIS was often used and other types of WIS,dutch bucket for tomatoes indicating a local way of integrating weather forecasts.This finding was also identified by some other studies, which mentioned that, despite the provision of scientific weather/climate information services through the radio, SMS, TV, agrometeorological bulletins, and so forth, farmers complemented forecast with their local environmental observations.The main reason farmers combined different WIS was the need for reliable and accurate forecasts, which seemed absent in a single WIS.Patt and Gwata and Nyadzi also observed that farmers’ use of seasonal climate forecasts increased when combined and compared with local knowledge.The essence of this finding from the study conducted in the Ada East District is an opportunity to co-produce WIS by integrating farmers’ local knowledge with scientific forecasts to enhance their usability for farming.This idea is increasingly discussed theoretically in the climate information service literature.It is necessary to involve existing preferred WIS sources such as farmers, the private weather forecaster, AEAs, and Radio Ada, from the study district.We identified new factors that affected the usability of WIS in our study district.These include the origin of information, continuity of information provision; schedule delivery of WIS; evidence-based information; format and content of information; graphic presentation, symbols, and terminologies, and accessible level and mode of payment.These findings suggest new factors may be attributed to several issues, including climate change and increasing variability in weather conditions, exposure to different WIS and new ICTs, changes in farming practices, and intensive cultivation of crops.
These factors may play multiple roles in triggering farmers to prefer certain factors inherent in WIS information design and delivery.This finding reiterates that the usability of weather/climate information needs to be mobilised around a particular social-cultural context.Hence, the delivery and uptake of forecast information must be context-specific.The findings on emerging factors indicate the need for information providers to make extra efforts to design and deliver WIS to decrease or even eliminate the WIS usability gap for farming.In our study, we observed trade-offs among factors that affected the WIS usability for farming.For instance, we observed trade-offs between predictive skill and spatial resolution.This is because if information providers attempt to attain location-specific forecasts , weather models tend to lose accuracy and vice versa.Despite advances in forecasting, predictions still carry high degrees of uncertainty depending on various factors such as the variable that is being forecasted, the time of year the forecast is issued, the region, and the length of lead-time.Towards this end, Dilling and Lemos indicated that in a context where decision-makers are made aware of the uncertainty inherent in forecast information, they can accept it as part of using the information in their decision-making.In contrast, there are instances where decision-makers may be risk averse and vulnerable.Hence, they may prefer not to use forecasts.In Burkina Faso, individuals were not interested in relying on forecasts until proven reliable.They expected the forecast to corroborate their observations.Other trade-offs identified in our study involve the factors, high level of interaction, and accessibility for all audiences.It was only the farmer to-farmer and the private weather forecaster’s WIS which met this need of farmers.This finding was also identified by Nyamekye et al.in the Northern region of Ghana, where farmers mentioned their preference for the weather/climate information delivered through the radio since it reaches a large group of audiences in the local language.Yet, it does not grant farmers the opportunity to ask questions or even make contributions due to limited time slots allocated to the radio program.We also observed a trade-off between evidence-based WIS and accessibility for all audiences because it was impossible to include every farmer in the district in practical WIS workshops.This finding also follows other studies.These studies also indicated that farmers have preferences for evidence based information delivered through agricultural extension workshops.Yet, the forecast information is unable to reach variable groups of farmers due to gender norms and expectations, patriarchal values, time poverty, the intersection of seniority, religion, class, and positions within households, that intersects with the criteria for the selection of lead farmers under extension delivery program.Trade-offs concerning factors that affect the usability of weather/ climate forecasts have been identified in the literature.They are inevitable in providing weather/ climate information services.Hence, we recommend that information providers engage farmers through workshops or training programmes to explain how trade-offs are associated with WIS.For example, issues on the provision of location-specific and accurate forecasts need to be discussed with farmers to moderate their expectations.