Context

• Recently 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.
• It has been developed by experts from the India Meteorological Department and Indian Institute of Tropical meteorology and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research.
• 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.

Utilities of the app

• 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 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.

Source:Downtoearth