Advisory will also have information on the type of crop needing to be sown, depending on irrigation
India Meteorological Department (IMD) plans to change its weather advisory service for farmers, linking it to a dynamic crop calendar of each district, based on the onset and progress of the monsoon.
The advisory will also have information on the type of crop needing to be sown, depending on irrigation and rain in that region, with a contingency plan if showers fail. According to senior officials, the improved advisories as part of IMD’s Grameen Krishi Mausam Sewa (GKMS) could begin in the coming kharif season. The Central Institute of Dryland Agriculture already has a model for a dynamic crop calendar. It prepared this in 2015 for 25 districts across 22 states, using the results of 30 years of field experiments. It has been prepared for major crops — rice, wheat, groundnut, soybean, maize, mustard, cotton.
The met plans to use the same model, linking with the onset and progress of the monsoon. “We are getting district-specific rain requirement for all the 640 districts in the country, based on which a rainfall outlook will be issued, along with details like whether supplementary irrigation is required or not,” IMD head K J Ramesh told this newspaper.
Instructions on how to deal with high-value crops like horticulture and floriculture would be included. The four-month southwest monsoon season that starts from June is the lifeline for Indian agriculture. Less than half of farm land is irrigated. Rainfall varies between agro-climatic zones and across districts.
To ensure the information spreads a s much as possible, IMD has entered into an agreement with India Post, for a cellphone database of farmer households. The Post will collect the information and upload it on a common website, to be accessed by the met department for sending these advisories. The service is planned as free of charge, for now. These advisories would also be displayed in post offices across the country.
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