The Ministries of Earth Sciences and Agriculture have launched a mobile application that will provide location, and crop and livestock-specific weather-based agro advisories to farmers in local languages.
To begin with, the service would be available for 150 districts in different parts of the country. It will be extended to rest of the country in a phased manner over the next one year. It will provide forecast relating to temperature, rainfall, humidity, and wind speed and direction, which play critical roles in agricultural operations and advisories to the farmers on how to take care of their crops and livestock. The information would be updated twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays.
The app would provide information in the form of images, maps and pictures to help the farmer to have a clearer picture of what is in store. It has been integrated with WhatsApp and Facebook as well to help farmers share advisories among themselves. It will also be integrated with YouTube in future.
It has been developed by experts from the India Meteorological Department and Indian Institute of Tropical meteorology and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. The app has been named Meghdoot and can be downloaded from Google Play Store and App Store. The users will have to register their name and location so that they can get area specific information.
In another related development, IMD has developed new website to disseminate weather and climate information in user-friendly manner. The website has less of technical information and more of important information such as district-wise weather warnings in easy to view and read formats. The site will also act as a centralized portal to all the meteorological offices in India to update the warnings, bulletins and other data in real-time.
Minister for Earth Science, Science and Technology Dr. Harsh Vardhan launched the agro-meteorology advisory application and the new website at a function to mark the Foundation Day of the Ministry of Earth Sciences. (India Science Wire)
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