Timely Advisories Issued by Weather Department Increased Farmer’s Income by 50 percent in Current Times

According to a survey done by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) timely conveyance of climate or weather advisories to farmers significantly affects their pay. The objective behind the survey was to measure the monetary effect of India's ventures on the National Monsoon Mission (NMM) and also on High Performance Computing Facilities (HPC). It demonstrated that farmers making preparatory moves that are based on agrometeorology advisories from the public authority revealed an expansion in pay of up to 50 percent. 

The survey took into account a total of around 4000 farmers based in 121 districts of 11 states all around the country. The India Meteorological Department along with Indian Council of Agricultural Research sends out agrometeorological advisories on a district wise basis with the help of a network of 130 agro-met field units.  

Several farm operations such as sowing management, alternation between crop varieties, disease control and irrigation management are covered by agrometeorological advisories. India is vulnerable to natural disasters and is very poorly prepared to handle climate changes. India stands at the 89th position out of 181 nations as per the WRI 2020 and is 4th in line out of all the South Asian countries right after Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan. In the past year, severe weather affected more than 14 million hectares of land in the country. 

Survey from the NCAER particularly explored the adequacy of agrometeorology warnings in alleviating chances in India's rainfed areas. These regions represent up to 40 percent of the nation's foodgrain creation. They additionally have a critical level of India's poor. The survey also pointed out that around 98 percent of the farmers have modified one of the total of nine practices completely based on the weather warnings. The practices include: 

- Change in variety or the breed of the crop 

- Harvest storage depending on the weather 

- Accelerate or delay the harvest based on the weather forecasts 

- Changing of crops 

- Accelerate or delay sowing 

- Ploughing or land preparation schedule change 

- Pesticide application set up change 

- Fertilizer application set up change 

- Irrigation schedule change 

By changing the practices, farmers save on damages related to farming and counter loss of income.  

Increment in Income:  

Above 90 % of the farmers benefited from the weather advisories by making changes in the above mentioned farming practices. The changes indirectly led to increase in the farmer’s income. There is a direct relation between the weather forecasts and farming operations. As per the estimates given by NCAER, The average annual income was Rs 1.98 lakh per annum for a farmer who didn’t take up any changes despite being provided with the advisories. Whereas for a farmer who made 1 to 4 changes made Rs 2.43 lakh per annum. For somebody who opted for 5 to 8 changes, the income increased to Rs 2.45 lakh per annum. Changes in all the 9 farming practices led to Rs 3.02 lakh per annum for the farmers. 

"The gradual financial benefits in the rainfed locale; families below Poverty Line or BPL category, for the following five years is assessed to be Rs 48,072 crore," the Survey says. In India's rainfed territories, there are 10.7 million family units having a place within the BPL category. 

"The monetary speculation of one rupee in NMM and HPC offices offers a 50 fold increment in financial benefits through increases to BPL farming and fishing families," the report said.