Columbia Climate School's Office of Faculty Affairs is pleased to announce Maya Moore will deliver our May research seminar, “Weather and Climate Services for Smallholder Farmers in Guatemala: Access, Equity, and the Limits of Information,” on Wednesday, May 13, from 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM in the Hogan Hall A-level Conference Room, at 2910 Broadway.
If joining on Zoom, RSVP here. You will receive the Zoom link the day before the event. If you cannot access this link, please email [email protected] to be added to the Zoom list. Light refreshments will be served.
Abstract: Weather and climate services (WCS) are increasingly promoted as a policy solution to help smallholder farmers manage climate risk and adapt agricultural practices. But do they work, and for whom? This talk draws on mixed-methods research conducted across the Dry Corridor and the western highlands of Guatemala to examine how farmers access, interpret, and act on weather and climate information. Quantitative survey data from 330 farming households reveals that while access to climate information is associated with greater adoption of climate-resilient practices and improved food security, these relationships are confounded by wealth and education, and a lack of information is not the primary barrier to adaptation. Qualitative research using in-depth interviews and focus groups further illuminates how social identities — including gender, age, and indigeneity — shape uneven access to and trust in official forecasts, with many farmers continuing to rely on ancestral knowledge systems. Taken together, these findings challenge the view of WCS as a technical fix, and instead highlight structural, social, and epistemic barriers that limit their effectiveness. The talk concludes with lessons for designing more equitable and farmer-centric climate services, including the integration of local knowledge, investment in community-based communication channels, and the pairing of information with material resources to strengthen adaptive capacity.
Bio: Maya Moore is a Postdoctoral Research Scientist at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) at Columbia Climate School. She is an applied food systems scholar specializing in smallholder farmer decision-making, the gendered dimensions of climate change adaptation, and food and nutrition security outcomes. With 20 years of international conservation and development experience, she has worked across West Africa, Madagascar, Southeast Asia, and Central America. Her current research examines gendered dimensions of climate information services in Guatemala, as well as technology and improved seed adoption in sub-Saharan Africa and India. She holds a PhD in Food Systems and a graduate certificate in Agroecology.
