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Dimapur, Feb. 19 (EMN): Considering the importance of weather information for an agrarian state like Nagaland, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and India Meteorological Department (IMD) along with the department of Agriculture, issues weekly advisory to farmers under the Agro Advisory Services (AAS) that has been helping farmers for almost a decade.
Dr. Romen Sharma, a scientist at ICAR (Jhanapani), told Eastern Mirror that more than 27000 farmers are registered with the agro advisory services in Nagaland and that the IMD has declared the state as one of the best AAS providers in India.
“We get the IMD forecast after which we get advice from different scientists and experts in the field after a study of the weather,” Sharma said. From studying the type of crops or animals, they determine probable diseases and its solution if anything should happen, he added.
However, the scientist said that generalised forecast has limited use in farming, whereby weather information for agricultural operations has to be tailor-made.
“A comprehensive weather-based farm advisory is interpreted starting from weather parameters, livestock and farm operations, and actions to be taken are sent out especially in our weekly bulletin,” Sharma informed, adding that it was done through agro and allied departments.
Another way of disseminating information to the farmers in remote regions is by SMS, which the scientist shared, was a way to share basic information every Tuesday and Friday due to limited usage of words. Another method was by giving integrated AAS during the first Friday of every month through a local newspaper, he informed.
“Many contributions are made by several scientists and experts from different institutes like SASRD and others,” Sharma said.
Director of ICAR-NRC on Mithun at Medziphema Dr. Abhijit Mitra also told this newspaper that the aim was to improve agricultural production, both in quality and quantity, and to minimise the impact of adverse weather on crops and to make use of favourable weather to boost agricultural production.
“Weather services provide a very special kind of input to the farmer as advisories can make a tremendous difference to the agriculture production while also using natural resources,” Mitra said.