3. The counsellors know too little about meteorology
to appreciate or apply such information.
Wieringa (1996) concluded that the lack of knowledge
of meteorology is the most likely reason. Such
is the situation for 19 countries of Western Europe as
well as in the US (Perry, 1994). The lack of economic
justification for the application of weather information
to agricultural practices maybe another aspect (Maunder,
1989). In Israel, for example, as long as the cost
of water was fairly low, there was no economic benefit
to using agricultural meteorological information for
the management of irrigation. However, as the price
of water rose an ever increasing number of farmers
turned to the irrigation management information service
(Lomas, 1996). Thus, there seem to be a number
of reasons for the lack of use of Agricultural Meteorological
Services by the weather sensitive agricultural
community:
1. The lack of cooperation between the institutions
providing information and relevant advisories and
those responsible for their transfer to the farming
community;
2. Insufficient education and training of the user community,
including the farm advisory services that
provide specific agricultural advice from general
weather information;