The Hindu Business Line : Weather forecast for the farm

The prices of agricultural produce nosedive when the new harvests come to the market and start climbing up till they reach a peak in the months immediately preceding the monsoons.

The government generally imposes restrictions on trade and export of farm produce when the commodities are in the hands of the farmers. Once they reach the traders, it removes restrictions on trade and export.

The Cotton Advisory Board gives optimistic estimates of the cotton crop in the early sowing period and revises them gradually till it predicts a shortage in the post-harvest days. These ups and the downs are often to the detriment of the farmer and to the advantage of the non-agrarian community.

Each year, as the monsoons approach, the Meteorological Department makes optimistic predictions. Last year, it predicted early and abundant rains. There were some early showers and the farmers, misled by the weather forecasts, presumed that this must be the beginning of the monsoon and started sowing operations. Actually, the monsoon took its own time to set in. The result: First sowing got parched. The farmers had to go for a second round by purchasing seeds and other inputs yet again. In some parts, even the second sowing went waste. As a result, a large number of farmers were driven to heavy indebtedness and, in many cases, even to suicide.

And, before that year ended, the tsunami catastrophe bared the incapacity or the inability of the early warning system of the country's meteorologists. Even after the tsunami had caused large-scale devastation, the authorities continued to maintain that an early warning system that could predict a tsunami did not exist in the world. Eventually, they had to retract and declare that an efficient early warning system could indeed be established.

We are now on the threshold of the 2005 monsoons. Once again, the weather pundits have announced that the rains will be munificent. The farmers are happy that, for once, they may emerge non-losers in the gamble. The Reserve Bank of India is happy too. Its Credit Policy presumes good monsoons and, on that basis, pegs the rate of growth of the economy at 7 per cent.

The meteorological forecasts are of such vital importance that all planning and predictions in the economy depend on them. How seriously is the task of weather forecasting taken? Recently, in answer to a supplementary to a starred question in the Rajya Sabha, the Minister for Science and Technology admitted that our present capacity permits us to make only broad and not month- or district-wise predictions on monsoons. Now, for the farmer, it is the distribution of the rainfall in his region that is important and not the overall prediction. The Minister went on to claim that there is no technology to that can make month- or district-wise predictions. This statement is not entirely true.

Vyankatesh Madgulkar, a Marathi author, who was also in charge of the rural broadcasting of the All India Radio, in his travelogue, gives a detailed description of the Australian system, which provides farmers not only district- and week-wise but, often, even day-to-day forecasts along with specific advice as to what action the farmers should take to save crops and increase production.

In Switzerland, the potato growers are warned whenever the temperatures threaten to go below the freezing point, which increases the percentage of glucose in potatoes and, consequently, renders them, unfit for processing. So, the farmers irrigate their crops with lukewarm water to raise the temperature.

Meteorology is the science of weather. It is an interdisciplinary science because the atmosphere, the land and the oceans constitute an integrated system. The weather forecasts are crucial for aviation, agriculture, fishing, oceanography, water management and disaster mitigation.

Recent advances in satellite imaging and computer technology have led to significant progress in meteorology. Even if the physical hardware for preparing worthwhile forecasts is in place, the human element plays an important role. For the aviation services, the Meteorological Department provides detailed weather forecasts. If it were not so, we would not have the pilot from his cabin informing the passengers the weather conditions expected en route and at the destination. In such a situation, how is it that the same Meteorological Department is unable to give worthwhile forecasts for agriculture?

Agricultural meteorology is the application of meteorological information and data for the enhancement of crop yields and the reduction of crop losses. It has linkages with forestry, horticulture and meteorology as also with plant physiology and animal pathology in addition to farm practices.

It would appear that our meteorological technician is not well-versed in aspects of agriculture and, therefore, unable to put on paper worthwhile forecasts.

There are two options. . One is to simply close down the Meteorological Department, if it is indeed not able to make worthwhile predictions. Recently, the Japanese Institute for Forecasting Earthquakes was shut when the authorities came to the conclusion that it was ineffective.

However, it would be better to give it a fair chance, and perhaps create a special Department of Agricultural Meteorology, where the people handling collection of data and their interpretation would have a sound agricultural grounding.

(The author, founder of the Shetkari Sanghatana, is a Member of the Rajya Sabha. He can reached at sharad.mah@nic.in.)

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