Bulletin

wall bulletin
West AfiricaCrop and environmental conditions in major production zones

Authors: 超级管理员 | Edit: xingqiang

The whole African continent experienced above normal thermal conditions during the reporting period, with very few exceptions. One of those exceptions was in Sierra Leone, where temperature was slightly below average(-0.3°C). Across the MPZ, rainfall and BIOMSS were about average (+7% and 0%,respectively). RADPAR was also approximately average (0% departure), with the exceptions of Sierra Leone (RADPAR +1%), Côte d'Ivoire (+1%), Benin (+3%), and Guinea Bissau (-3%). As a result of increased precipitation, BIOMSS is up around5% compared to the five-year average, with large differences among countries: from-1% in Guinea Bissau to +16% in Liberia, with most countries in the +6% to +7%range. The whole region is now completing harvest—or has already done so, with the exception of the south where the harvest of roots and tubers (yams and cassava) typically comes later in the year. The same areas also usually cultivate a second maize crop that is due to harvest later in the year, also visible on the cropping intensity map.

Most areas in the MPZ suffered a more or less synchronized rainfall reduction in July/August or August September; at the end of September,precipitation fell -25% over most of Guinea and Sierra Leone, but this was compensated by high rainfall at the end of October. At the beginning of October, southern Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire as well as eastern central Nigeria suffered a slightly milder water stress (-20%). As indicated above, the region as a whole experienced a slight rainfall excess with no serious shortfalls. In the western Sahelian parts of the MPZ, high—but not excessively so—temperature departures of up to +2°C occurred in early July, coinciding with a somewhat delayed beginning of the Sahelian season, occurring mostly to the areas indicated as“un cropped” in the cropped and un cropped arable land map.

Despite a slightly decreased fraction of cropped arable land(-1%) and cropping intensity (-4%), high VCIx combined with roughly average weather indicate favorable conditions for the MPZ’s first and second maize crops, roots and tubers, as well as rice.

Figure 2.1. West Africa MPZ: Agroclimatic and agronomic indicators, July-October 2014

(a )Spatial distribution of rainfall profiles  (b)  Profiles of rainfall departure from average

(c) Spatial distribution of temperature profiles (d)  Profiles of temperature departure from average