' The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Meteorological Organization have signed a memorandum of understanding to deepen cooperation to respond to climate variability and climate change, which, according to the agreement, "represents an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human societies, natural ecosystems and food security. ' * Source WMO news ' Through their ...

The European Commission MARS (Monitoring Agricultural ResourceS) programme publish regular bulletins commenting on observed and forecast crop growth. In the May 2017 publication it suggests that there is a positive outlook for winter crops across Ireland and the UK. “Winter crops are generally faring well, despite a pronounced rain deficit. Overall the yield outlook is positive, but more rai...

The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine advises farmers in relation to the predicted risk of infection in livestock based on the advice received from the Nematodirus Advisory Group. Source: DAFM - Press Release, April 2017 About the disease "Nematodirosis is a severe disease of lambs six to twelve weeks of age, which become infected through ingesting large numbers of infective ...

This May Met Éireann will be launching its ‘MÉRA’ climate reanalysis dataset. This 35 year meteorological gridded dataset will have many potential applications within the Irish Agrometeorology community "Climate reanalysis is a systematic approach used to produce meteorological datasets for climate monitoring and research. They are created using a fixed version of a forecast model and a data...

Using a surface energy balance approach to characterise agro-environmental zones in Ireland in support of on-farm decision making Background "Farming, particularly pastoral farming, involves the management of biological processes within a specific ecological and weather environment to generate income which in turn is also a function of the costs of inputs used on farm and prices for the outputs ...

Relatively warm temperatures across Ireland in January saw many flowers arrive uncharacteristically early. However we were not the only ones feeling the warmth. Globally January 2017 has been confirmed as the third hottest January on record, with the majority of North America and Siberia experiencing a very warm month. See who has been feeling the heat on the NASA website. This follows 2016 whi...

The European Meteorological Society (EMS) annual conference is coming to Ireland this September. The European Conference for Applied Meteorology and Climatology will run from the 4th – 8th September 2017 in Dublin. This conference typically attracts over 600 people each year from all related sectors. This year there is a dedicated session on Agricultural Meteorology. Attendance, as well as the ...

Shefayim, Israel, 14th– 24th May 2017 The Israel Meteorological Service has provided training at a post-graduate level since 1967.  Several thousands of participants from all over the world, mainly from developing countries, have taken advantage of lessons learnt to study the application of meteorology to various aspects of economic activity. Since Israel was successful with developing agric...

A Climate Change Adaptation Plan for the Agriculture and Forest Sector is being developed by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM). A public consultation process is ongoing and DAFM are inviting written submissions. [Update: submission deadline has now passed]. Submissions received will help to inform the completion of this sectoral plan in the coming months. For further ...

Each year, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine advises farmers of the predicted risk of disease caused by liver fluke (Fasciola hepatica) infection in livestock based on advice received from the Liver Fluke Advisory Group. Source: DAFM - Press Release, November 2016 The Disease Forecast "The risk of disease due to liver fluke infection is high for most parts of the country ...