Move to link crop advisories to weather-based insurance scheme

Farmers across the State will soon have access to better and more precise location-specific crop advisories as the Department of Agriculture prepares to augment its Agromet service and link it to the weather-based crop insurance scheme.
The weekly crop advisory and weather information issued to farmers will be improved with additional inputs from automatic weather stations installed by private agencies. The India Meteorology Department (IMD) currently issues quantitative forecasts for seven weather parameters, namely rainfall, maximum and minimum temperatures, wind speed and direction, relative humidity and cloudiness, and weekly cumulative rainfall.
Experts at the Agromet Field Units functioning under Kerala Agricultural University interpret the meteorological information and use it to prepare an agro advisory for crops. The forecast is issued every Tuesday and Friday.
The university depends on a network of automatic weather stations installed by the IMD at Ambalavayal in Wayanad, Peelicode in Kasaragod, Vellayani in Thiruvananthapuram, Thrissur and Kumarakom, in addition to three stations at Kannara in Thrissur, Pattambi and Alappuzha. ISRO has weather stations at Thrissur, Manjeswaram, Ernakulam and Thiruvananthapuram while private agencies have a larger network across the State.
“By procuring data from private weather stations, we hope to widen the input and equip farmers to deal with the vagaries of weather,” says R. Ajithkumar, Director of Agriculture.
  • Private weather stations to be tapped for data
  • Insurance scheme to be extended to districts