Climate Exchange

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griculture

of government schemes for different agricultural inputs such as

advanced irrigation systems and seeds of different crops.

During the programme, farmers have mentioned their specific require-

ments from AAS, including:

• Local-level forecasts for the season and month to be given in advance

for planning their crops/cropping patterns, and midseason corrections

in the event of dry and wet spells

• All four types of periodical weather information (long-term, medium-

term, short-term and nowcast) supplied from a single window with

agromet advisories

• The agromet advisories should reach farmers well in advance (two to

three days) and a full advisory covering all the crops and agricultural

tasks to be done should be communicated through the mass media

and different government agencies, as well as being available through

Kisan Call Centres which provide online services to the farmers

• The AAS bulletin should include information on organic farming,

especially pest control measures and mixed farming including

vegetables

• Information on threats such as pest, disease and frost should be given

at least three days in advance

• The agro-advisory bulletin should be displayed in public areas like the

Block Office, Village Office, Panchayat Office, local market and other

popular places.

The main difficulty for farmers in rural villages is that they do not have

access to the information at the right time. The basic challenges of the

meteorological community would be to prepare crop- and location-

specific agromet advisories – particularly concerning climate variability,

climate change and severe weather conditions – and to communicate

these to the farmers through personalized services, online and at the

right time. There is a need to increase interaction between meteor-

ologists and the user community, and linkages should be developed

between these two groups to protect the crops at appropriate times.

Future goals

As IMD is upgrading the services fromdistrict to block level with dissemi-

nation at village level, there is a need to sensitize farmers about weather

services in more rural areas. Thus the frequency of the programme will

be increased. It will be funded by the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES),

Government of India as and when required.

Based on the requirements, strategies will be framed to implement a

farmer-oriented AAS, including:

• Efforts to develop precise and accurate weather forecasts at

block level in addition to extended-range weather forecasts

at fortnightly, monthly and seasonal scale for application in

agriculture (at present, weather forecast and agromet advisories

are developed at district level)

• Initiation of agromet advisories for new categories like horticultural

crops, livestock, wasteland, forest fires and post-harvest

• Emphasis on developing a mechanism by which a farmer can contact

agricultural scientists through the Internet, telephone or video

conferencing to get agrometeorological advice on a specific problem

• Tie-up with the existing crop growers’ associations for high-value

crops like tea, coffee, apple, mango, sugarcane and cotton, to develop

suitable crop-specific advisories and build up a mechanism to

disseminate the information to targeted growers

• Dissemination of advisories using multichannel systems like the

Common Service Centre of the Department of Information Technology,

Virtual Academy/Virtual Universities/NGOs, Kisan Call Centres/Kisan

Melas/KVK/ICAR and other related institutes, agricultural

universities and the extension network of the State

Agriculture Department

• Provision of appropriate training to the farmers through

capsule courses, with extensive training through the

State Agricultural University and State Department of

Agriculture with active support from IMD.

Expansion and knowledge transfer

The participation of different stakeholders and the

dissemination of knowledge about weather-based agromet

services and their use in farming are central issues for the

success of the Farmer Awareness Programme. In India, the

programme will continue to be organized at regular inter-

vals to make the system sustainable. Key to the success

of this endeavour is the development of accurate district-

level forecasts and agromet advisories that are useful to the

farmers, and the dissemination of advisories through SMS.

India has been divided into 127 agroclimatic zones

based on soil characteristics, rainfall distribution, irriga-

tion patterns, cropping patterns and other ecological and

social characteristics for the management of agriculture in

a systematic and meaningful way. At present the Farmer

Awareness Programme is being carried out at AMFUs

located in the agroclimatic zones. In the next five-year plan,

the programme will be conducted at the 620 KVKs which

are located at district level. A special programme will also be

conducted for practical demonstrations and the issuance of

advisories under different weather and climate conditions.

Other countries, particularly in the South Asian

Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), can

conduct similar programmes which will help to raise

the farming community’s awareness of current advances

in the provision of weather and climate information for

facilitating operational decisions on farms. The World

Meteorological Organization and SAARC Agriculture

Centre have a great role to play in sharing informa-

tion about India’s experience of the Farmer Awareness

Programme, particularly in RAII countries. In this regard,

a consultationmeeting on Operational Agrometeorological

Services in SAARC and other countries in RAII regions was

organized in Pune from 20-21 April 2012. At that meeting,

the initiative was taken to share the mechanism of AAS

development in India with the other countries and an

in-depth discussion took place on strategies for streamlin-

ing the activities of AAS, including the Farmer Awareness

Programme, in SAARC and non-SAARC countries.

Under the Global Framework of Climate Services

(GFCS), IMD/MoES is already collaborating with differ-

ent organizations to implement dedicated operational

agromet advisory services, to help farmers minimize

crop loss against the adverse impact of bad weather and

increase crop productivity by taking advantage of favour-

able weather. These agromet services conform to the

basic principles of the GFCS in that they are operational

services carried out in collaboration mode for district,

regional and national levels. Of the different components

of the services, the Farmer Awareness Programme has

proved to be highly useful.