Bangladesh Agro-Meteorological Information System
Bangladesh is a disaster prone country and it is frequently affected by flood, drought, and tropical cyclones. Bangladesh is likely to be one of the most vulnerable countries of the world in the event of climate change. Despite the susceptibility of Bangladesh to weather and climate extremes, the country’s hydro-meteorological information, early warning and seasonal advisory related information is beyond to reach the farmer. There is an opportunity to provide reliable Agro-Meteorological information to farming community effectively. Agro-Meteorological information for sustainable agricultural development is needed to disseminate information to the farmer in their understandable language to plan their farming activities more efficiently.
WMO had organized a technical seminar in 2012 regarding climate services in Bangladesh. National and foreign expert’s participation in the seminar identified three key areas to develop and disseminate Agro-Meteorological services.
Overall Objective:
Overall objective of this project is “to strengthen the capacity of the Government of Bangladesh to deliver reliable weather, water and climate information services and improve access to such services by priority sectors and communities”.
-To disseminate Agro-Meteorological services to farmers in order to increase agricultural productivity and assist farmers in coping with weather and climate extremes.
-To provide support to establish a science-based agro-meteorological information system to develop appropriate information and products.
-To deliver Agro-Meteorological information through a number of dissemination mechanisms that will provide the agricultural sector with a decision support information system to mitigate climate-related agricultural production risks.
-Strengthening of capacity at different levels to enable the development and effective delivery of climate information services to the agricultural sector.
Activities:
- Digitization of historical and current agricultural data on the land holdings crops/cropping systems cultivated by farmers, average crop yields in different upazillas.
- Integration of AWS (Automated Weather Station) weather and agricultural data and compilation of Agro-Meteorological databases for 487 upazillas.
-Establishment of Agro-Meteorological touch screen kiosks in 487 upazillas with data display screens, computers and printers in the Upazilla Agriculture Offices.
-Development of farmers friendly mobile Apps which can give them instant access to information and communication such as current weather, expected weather and the related impacts on crop growth and development and advice on controlling any emerging pests and diseases etc.
- To Conduct Feedback Assessment at the end of each of the following years in order to ensure appropriate changes are made to improve the Agro-Meteorological advisories and products to meet the needs of farmers.
-Technical assistance and support for more effective production and dissemination of Agro-Meteorological advisories and products for the extension staffs and farming community.
-Forecasts for both short-term operational decisions and long-term strategic planning at the farm level.
-Improved communication about future weather and climate events – daily, weekly and seasonal weather forecasts and climate updates prepared for mass media.
-Support in selection of appropriate cropping pattern, irrigation management, integrated pest and diseases management etc.
-Advisories for the farmers and extension staffs to select favorable time for transplantation, crop harvesting, crop crashing, crop drying, crop preserving, crop marketing, applying fertilizer and pest control elements etc.
-Early warning will help the farmers to reduce crop loss due to natural disaster.
-Advisories will be able to reduce other negative result from agriculture activities like possibility to sweep extra fertilizer and pesticide to surface water and affecting the ecosystem.
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