Collaborating on Establishing an Agro-meteorological Learning Situation among Farmers in Java

Climate change has unintended and unexpected consequences for peoples' livelihoods. Farmers, who depend heavily on weather conditions in cultivation, are finding it increasingly difficult to rely on their memories and existing knowledge to sustain their farming strategies. There is an urgent need to assist farmers to improve their agro-meteorological analyses to enable them to anticipate and cope with changes in climate. In this paper, we present the results of inter-disciplinary and collaborative research undertaken by anthropologists, an agro-meteorologist and local people based on farmers' rainfall measurements and field observations in the provinces of Yogyakarta and West Java, Indonesia. We explore the evolving strategies of the farmers, which have led to the formation of agro-meteorological schemas and adaptive changes in farming practices. We demonstrate the value of linking scientific and local knowledge production, and the need for both continuous reflexivity among participants and longitudinal collaborative work.