Climate Exchange

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Reaching farming communities in India

through Farmer Awareness Programmes

L. S. Rathore, India Meteorological Department, New Delhi, N. Chattopadhyay, Agricultural Meteorology Division,

India Meteorological Department, Pune and K.K. Singh, India Meteorological Department, New Delhi

armer Awareness Programmes have been helping to increase

the interaction between local farming communities, regional

meteorological centres/meteorological centres (RMCs/MCs),

agrometeorological field units (AMFUs) and Krishi Vigyan Kendras

(KVKs) in India, and educating farmers about weather and climate

information and its applications in operational farm management.

The programmes are organized jointly by the India Meteorological

Department (IMD), state agricultural universities, Institutes of the

Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and Indian Institute

of Technology, working with local non-governmental organizations

(NGOs) and other stakeholders in different parts of the country

As well as helping to make farmers more self-reliant in dealing with

weather and climate issues that affect agricultural production, the

programmes were also needed to help RMCs/MCs, AMFUs and

KVKs understand farmers’ requirements for using weather forecast

and agrometeorological advisories. To assist the farmers and further

develop their adaptive capacity with improved planning and better

management decisions, a participatory, cross-disciplinary approach

is being taken to delivering climate and weather infor-

mation and enhancing the awareness of information

user groups.

Ground surveys indicate that Farmer Awareness

Programmes address a long-standing demand from

India’s farming community. Typically, each programme

lasts for one day and brings together farmers from a

group of villages to a centralized location in any given

region. Participants can share ideas about crop cultiva-

tion with respect to the weather, and farmers can get

answers to their questions about weather-sensitive farm

operations and strategies as well as climate change.

The Farmer Awareness Programme was successfully

completed during the years 2009-2010 and 2010-2011

at many AMFUs, which invited farmers from nearby

villages to take part. Ninety-four AMFUs located in

agricultural universities and ICAR institutes have organ-

ized Farmer Awareness Programmes and approximately

10,000 farmers have attended them.

griculture

Brochures and posters from the Farmer Awareness Programme

Source: India Meteorological Department