Impact analysis of meghdoot App through farmersfeedback in weather forecasting and disseminationof agromet advisory services information on realtime basis

Abstract

Agriculture is the mainstay of the country. Nearly 67percent of the agrarians rely solely on rained agriculture, i.e theyexclusively depend on rains to carry out their various agriculturalactivities. Crop losses were quite pronounced during kharif season inmost of the years, due to dry spell or wet spell. In order to minimisethe losses due to natural vagaries, in crop and livestock enterprises,India Meteorological Department in association with Indian Councilof Agricultural Research and Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology,Pune have launched Meghdoot app during August 2019, to study theimpact of weather forecasting and dissemination of agro advisoryservices to farmers on real time basis. Survey was conducted onMeghdoot app, an android based mobile application, during kharif2020 under Gramin Krishi Mausam sewa project currently operationalat agro meteorological field unit, Bidar. To collect the information, asemi structured interview schedule was prepared &the responsesabout the meghdoot app services based on socio personal profile ofthe farmers was collected. A three point continum scale was designedto know the level of usefulness of the technology and regularity ofthe information respectively. Based on the socio economic profile,majority of the young adults, in the age group of less than 30 years,rated the meghdoot app information as highly useful(33.3%) with aneducation level of 10 to 12th class (10%)and also the land acquisitionin the medium range between 2 to 10 hectares (5.3%) and finally inthe agro enterprises sector as 53.3 percent. Similarly, in the case ofdeployment of Meghdoot information in various agricultural activities,twenty two percent of the respondents rated the app information ashighly useful during sowing &transplanting activities followed byharvesting and threshing (20%) and the least(2%) response wasobserved in fertiliser application