State Agriculture dept to run special news report for farming fraternity in the event of sudden weather change, to avoid losses incurred by calamities
With the mayhem of the recent hailstorm in mind, and in order to alert farmers prior natural calamities, the State Agriculture department has decided to run a special news bulletin whenever they get special instructions about sudden change in weather conditions. Department officials are confident that the bulletin will prepare farmers in advance, thereby minimising destruction.
State Agriculture Commissioner Umakant Dangat, said, "There have been constant changes in state weather conditions as well as natural calamities such as hailstorms which have caused great loss to farmers. As a result, we have decided to reach out to farmers, with a special bulletin on news channels. The bulletin will initially run on government channels, but we plan to tie up with private channels in the future."
The department has also made changes in their SMS service, by which farmers used to receive text messages regarding weather variants that are specific to their crop and geographical location. The department has now decided to start a special centre from where farmers will receive such text messages on a regular basis.
Elaborating on the centre, Dangat said, "As many as two lakh farmers had subscribed to the SMS service and would get messages from our weather observatories. However, we got a dismal response from farmers, and the content of the messages was not up to the mark.
Considering these aspects, we have decided to start a special centre at the Agriculture College where experts will send advisory text messages to farmers." Dangat added that the department has aimed to have over 15 lakh farmers as subscribers, and that updated equipment will be procured for the centre.
"To ensure effective monitoring, we have appointed senior weather scientist Dr Ramchandra Sable as an advisor. He will look into data collection from observatories, the Indian Meteorological Department, the Indian Institute Of Tropical Meteorology, after which messages will be sent to farmers," Dangat said.
Department officials said that floods, drought, hailstorms, and fluctuating temperature have affected the state's ecosystem over the past decade. Nagpur, which had the second largest forest cover in the country, is today one of the hottest places in India.
"We are rapidly losing the capacity to absorb the carbon dioxide generated in industrial sectors. A surge in the number of vehicles, industrialisation and subsequent air pollution has also added to the weather downturn," an official said.
Weather scientist Dr Ramchandra Sable, said, "The sudden changes in weather are major concern for the state. Once we can send accurate messages to farmers, they can even change their crop patterns and avoid further loss. Eventually, it will help to increase state agriculture production in the future. Once we send accurate messages to farmers, they can even change their crop patterns and avoid loss"
Source - http://www.punemirror.in/
