At last there is some good news for farmers in small hamlets who look up to the sky for daily guidance expected weather behaviour.
In a significant departure from existing practices of providing ambiguous weather information on agro climatic zones which often were of little importance to small farmers, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Wednesday for the first time launched district level meteorological advisory service (DAAS) for helping farmers in crop management.
?This advisory will help boost agricultural production, reduce expenditure on sees, fertilizers and pesticides and reduce crop losses due to vagaries of weather,? Kapil Sibal, union minister for science and technology said. The agro advisory will include inputs such as which crop is good at what time and what farmers of a district should do according to the weather pattern.
Currently, IMD provides four days weather forecasting services through 127 agro-climatic zones known as National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting. ?The existing agro advisory system was not adequate to deal with crop management issues due to huge variations in weather across the district,? Sibal said. DAAS would provide weather data for five days on parameters like rainfall, temperatures, relative humidity, wind speed and cumulative rainfall forecast. Sibal said that the cabinet had approved a financial assistance of Rs 900 crore for a proposal for modernising the forecasting system further in the next five years.
Out of the total 600 districts in the country, nearly 150 districts across states would get the facility in the first phase starting on Wednesday. This will cut down the error margin and benefit the farmer most, an IMD official said. Sibal said the weather information would be disseminated through advisory centres, Kisan Vikas Kendras and agricultural universities, media organisation, NGOs etc. He also said that an exclusive weather forecasting television channel would be launched by the end of the year.