Letaba municipality extension workshop - 9th June 2015 at Tzaneen County Lodge

A local municipality extension workshop with participation of 31 extension officers from the Letaba municipality, as well as participants from the DEWD team from LDA and Linköping University/SMHI was held at Tzaneen country lodge 9th of June 2015.   Results from the DEWD project were presented, and discussions were held. Among other things, the discussions revealed that only a few extension officers received seasonal forecasts. There was an agreement on that short summaries with interpreted information is most useful. More workshops on interpretation of data and maps were required.  Continuous engagement capacity building including god examples from champion farmers with demonstrations and trials was recommended in order to make farmers take action based on forecasts. Although younger take advice quicker and have better literacy level they were seen to be difficult to engage and few continue with farming.   The need to speed up systems and reduce bureaucracy problem was identified.  Plans are there, but take long to implement.  More bottom-up dialogues were requested.  Before decide on policy must approach people on the ground level.