Emergency Alert
About ICWFDS
Informing Farmers to Increase Productivity, Manage Weather Induced Risks and Improve Food Security
Agricultural sector is the backbone of the Nepal economy and population is heavily dependent on agriculture, which is mostly rain-fed. However, due to climate change Nepal suffers from various climate-related natural hazards such as scarcity of Precipitation, erratic Precipitation pattern, heat stress, drought, and flooding which have impact agricultural sector heavily.
- Hence, managing the risks associated with increasingly variable climate is a key to successfully adapting agriculture, and to reducing the cycle of poverty, vulnerability and dependence brought about by climate-related disasters.
- However, a common problem in developing countries like Nepal is the lack of integrated means of processing and delivering agro-meteorological information on real time basis to the farming communities.Although lots of data and information are available at various agencies in Nepal (e.g., agricultural research institutes, meteorological monitoring stations, etc.) but at the moment there is lack of a well-developed system that integrates data from different sources and translate raw information into accessible forms that are understandable and relevant to decision-making.
Appropriate ICT-based tool is therefore of urgent importance to better translating raw climate and weather data into usable and accessible information by all the stakeholders for improved decisions by the farmers.
By translating climate information into actionable climate knowledge, an innovative decision support system comprising of “ICT-based Agrometeorological Advisory Dissemination Application (IAMADA) to Develop Climate Resilient Agricultural System in Nepal” will facilitate farmers and extension personnel to better understand climate variability and associated risks. Further, this tool addresses a range of climate-sensitive decisions for the best agronomic management practices. Such ICT-based tool is vital to unlocking the potential of climate-smart agriculture in developing countries by closing the divide between climate information and effective action as weather and climatic information plays a major role before and during the cropping season.
This ICT-based tool includes the agro-met advisories for the pre-cultivation strategic and tactical decisions to be made through the crop growing phases (i.e., post-sowing to harvest stage) based on weather forecast information. Pre-cultivation and phase-based crop growth calendar are important to be attended carefully, because they cannot be postponed, often irreversible and represent a substantial allocation of resources, with a wide-ranging consequence on agricultural productivity and profitability in any given growing season. Through this tool, agro-meteorological advisories can be generated for all major crops (e.g., rice, maize, wheat, potato, oilseed, etc.) an information that can be disseminated to the registered farmers using the individual mobile phone.
How it works?
It works by developing and implementing weather forecast based agro-meteorological advisory services by DHM and NARC for accelarating sustainable climate-resilient agrilcultural system in Nepal.
Coordination
Development
