The IMD?s forecast of below average monsoon is not encouraging news for farmers, and it is imperative that they prepare for the crisis and change their crop plans.
Sowing activities happen in June and a delay in rains means shifting to alternate crops. This will depend on the region, number of days monsoon is delayed, water requirement of a crop and local conditions. Yet, timely information reaching farmers in a meanin-gful way remains a challenge.
IMD’s agricultural meteorology division has been implementing agromet advisories. The director general of meteorology, IMD, LS Rathore, is keen on popularising the same and met all stakeholders in Pune. He wants to take the agromet advisory services right down to the block level. But Rathore says the government and its agencies can?t do this alone, and the agromet services are already stretched. ?We want to rope in more intermediaries to reach out to stakeholders.? he says. The idea is to use the existing strength of IMD’s agromet advisory and find innovative ways to deliver it by riding on ICT and using intermediaries. IMD has started working with local NGOs but a lot more needs to be done.
According to Nabansu Chattopadhyay, DDG of meteorology (agrimet), IMD, advisories are disseminated directly to 5.06 million farmers via multimodal communication systems, particularly SMS. But to provide block level analysis, IMD would need to make localised weather forecasts. It will need a remote observatory system, expansion of the rain gauge network and troops on the ground to make it happen.
To fill in the gap private companies have also got interested. Reliance Industries, Mahindra & Mahindra, IFFCO Kisan Sanchar, RML Global and commodity firms are among them.