Itanagar: Union Earth Sciences Minister Kiren Rijiju has said that instruments for extensive weather reading and three large Doppler radar stations will be installed in Arunachal Pradesh soon.
The minister made the announcement on Friday while addressing a farmers’ awareness programme in Itanagar.
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He said that the installation of the instruments would result in accurate weather forecasts in the state, which would directly benefit the farmers in planning their agricultural activities for maximising productivity and minimising losses.
Rijiju urged farmers to increase agricultural productivity by using scientific applications. He said that climate is an important factor in everyone’s lives and the fast-changing climate due to global warming is going to have an impact.
He called on everyone to change lifestyles and respond to climate change scientifically.
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The minister also appealed to the farmers to take full advantage of the programme, which is themed ‘Self-reliant farmers: Empowering farmers through agro-meteorological advisory services in changing climate’.
The programme was jointly organised by the union earth sciences ministry, the India Meteorological Department, the Association of Agrometeorologists, the state’s agricultural department, and the Centre for Earth Sciences & Himalayan Studies.
Earlier in the programme, Agriculture Minister Tage Taki said that the reason for less productivity in the state can be attributed to the tools for the assessment of climatic variation.
He said that lack of weather-related data like rain density and wind velocity results in the failure of designing effective and efficient agricultural structures.
Taki requested the team from the union earth sciences ministry to “consider the agro-climatic zones, climatic variations and the shortcomings inaccurate weather forecast in the state,” and train the farmers accordingly so that they gain maximum benefit from the training.
The programme was attended by farmers from across the state. They were given presentations on the benefits of using weather data for agricultural planning and were also trained on how to use the new weather instruments.