Farmers Weather Knowledge in Preparations for Rain-Fed Crop Cultivation in Fundong Subdivision Northwest Region, Cameroon

Rain-fed food crops cultivation constitutes a foremost livelihood source for humans. In Fundong subdivision, the seed sowing of rain-fed food crops is always done at the month of March following the first rains. Over the last decade, increasing uncertainty of the first rains during the planting seasons has increased tremendously and farmers have resort to the use of local sources and strategies of weather forecast to plan for seed sowing of rain-fed food crops. From these grounds, this paper seeks to investigate the strategies as well as the motives for indigenous preference in weather forecast as an adaptation strategy against the increasing uncertainties in the first rains during the planting seasons in Fundong subdivision. Data was collected from randomly selected 187 households using semi-structured questionnaires, focus groups discussions, interviews and field observations. The data collected was descriptively analysis and the results presented in the form of tables and bar charts. Photos were equally taken to portray the field reality. About seven (7) strategies viz; flowering of coffee, mist covering mountains, excessive heat during the night, smell of toilet, dew fall on leaves of bananas, trees and roof of houses observed in the morning, concentration of dark clouds in the sky and smell of rain are the strategies farmers used to forecast the onset of rains which help them prepare for the planting of rain-fed food crops. The motives for indigenous weather preference was assessed to be due to limited conventional sources of weather information, low level of education of farmers, lack of electricity in some areas of the study site, complexity of scientific weather knowledge, no weather scientist and difficult access to network in certain locations of the study area. The study opined that conventional sources of weather information should be installed in the study area in order to complement indigenous knowledge in studying extreme weather events.