ABSTRACT
The symposium organizers are encouraged to try to heighten the awareness of national planners and decision makers regarding the utility of agroclimatology and agroclimatic models for stimulating and reorienting agricultural development. Admittedly, economics are at the base of it, since money determines how well an agroclimatic information system can be developed. But money comes from political support, and most agroclimatologists agree that they have done a poor job selling management on the value of agroclimatic technology. This chapter helps the readers to understand what agroclimatic data are necessary to improve agricultural production through modeling and what are the bottlenecks or major problems in obtaining these data. It also helps them to understand how should data be stored—on paper, discs, tape, cards, or in published volumes, and investigates what are the real needs for published or otherwise available agroclimatic data. There are four types of necessary data: climatic, agronomic, crop yield, and economic.
