Farmers BenefittedFrom Accurate Forecasting

In News

According to a study, accurate weather forecasting benefits farmers and livestock owners.

In-Detail

• According to the study, the total annual economic benefits to the farmers and livestock owners has been increased with the help of accurate weather forecasting by the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) and agencies working under the Ministry of Earth Sciences.
• The estimated total annual economic benefits was Rs. 13,331 crore.
• The incremental benefits for the next five years is estimated to be Rs. 48,056 crores.
• The total annual income gained by the fishermen due to better forecasting is calculated to be Rs. 663 crore.
• The present value of benefits accruing through the agricultural farmers and livestock owners for a period of five years is Rs. 2391 crore.
• The National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCEAR) conducted the study. The survey was done on behalf of the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES).
• The NCEAR is non-profit think tank of economics and is an independent institution located in the national capital New Delhi.
• The key feature of the survey is to evaluate economic benefits of the government’s investments in the National Monsoon mission which was launched in 2012.
• The National Monsoon Mission is a Rs.1000 crore mission.
• The survey shows that the country would gain economic benefits of worth Rs 50 for every rupee spent on the National Monsoon Mission and other high computing programmes of the MoeS.
• The most prominent weather services for farmers for their day-to-day operations is the IMD, which is an agro-meteorological services.
• For fishermen, the weather forecast and warnings are provided by the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS).
• Today, over 7 lakh fishermen use these services.
• The study was conducted across 173 rain-fed districts in 16 states.
• Based on the weather advisories, 98% farmers made modifications to their farm practices.
• This included changing breed of crop, arranging storage of harvest, early or delayed harvesting, early or delayed sowing, changed schedule of ploughing and land preparation, change of pesticide application schedule and change of irrigation schedule.
• Around 94% of framers said that the weather forecast helped them in avoiding losses or increase income.
• Using Ocean State Forecast (OSF) advisories, 82% fishermen avoided venturing into the sea and 95% of them avoided empty trips.
• The OSF advisories helped to save operational costs of Rs 18.25 crore by avoiding venturing into the sea.
• Additional catch generated with the help of Potential Fishing Zone (PFZ) advisories had generated Rs 1.92 crore additional income from 1,079 successful fishing expeditions.

National Monsoon Mission

• The mission was launched to improve the monsoon prediction capability of the country.
• The mission aims at improving models in the short, medium, extended and seasonal range scales.
• The main objectives are
  • To improve improve Seasonal and Intra-seasonal Monsoon Forecast
  • To improve Medium Range Forecast.
• The Three participating institutions for the Mission are
  • Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune
  • National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecast, Noida
  • India Meteorological Department, New Delhi