The Department of the Agricultural Extension (DAE) contemplates bringing 3.0-million farmers under its network with an eye to supplying them with agro-related weather forecast directly.
Practical Action, a British development agency, is joining hands with this World Bank-funded project styled 'Bangladesh Agro-Meteorological Information System (BAMIS)' to strengthen its capacity, officials said on Monday.
Presently, the project has a network of 30,000 lead farmers across the country.
BAMIS project director Shah Kamal Khan said, "The combination of the lead groups will be changed. Apart from farmers, we're planning to involve people from other sectors at grass-roots level like teachers."
"These lead groups countrywide will disseminate weather-related information to rest of the farmers so that they can be prepared to face adverse weather," he told the FE.
In 2019, the DAE launched the project with intent to make farmers aware of weather beforehand to be better prepared to address challenges related to bad weather and natural disasters.
An impact assessment survey of the BAMIS project shows farmers under two unions in Cox's Bazar could save crop worth Tk 10 million after they were provided with the forecast of the cyclone Mocha.
The application of agro-climatic information is also important to control and manage pests and diseases of crop plants, according to the officials.
An estimated 4.0-14 per cent of rice yield in Bangladesh are lost every year by different insect pests, they say.
According to experts, the necessity of informing the farmers of weather forecast on a regular basis is becoming more important than ever before as the weather is behaving erratically in recent times posing severe threat to agriculture.
The agriculture sector employs an estimated 45 per cent of the labour force of the nation's more than 170-million people.
The 'Changing Climate of Bangladesh', a study jointly conducted by the Bangladesh Meteorological Department and the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, shows monsoon here is growing hotter, leaving public health and agriculture exposed to prolonged heat stress.
The BAMIS project has a web portal, which disseminates agro-meteorological services and other related information to different users, especially to the farmers, in Bangladesh.
Meteorological data from the Met office and hydrological data from the Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) will be accumulated on the BAMIS portal.
The information will be disseminated to lead farmers after its being translated and validated by the DAE Agromet Technical Committee.
"It will soon be linked with other relevant stakeholders," said Mr Kamal.
The portal includes updated advisories for 64 districts, national agromet advisory, agromet information in respect of crop, weather sensitivities on crops, pests and diseases information, and its linkages with weather along with control measures.
It also provides information of agro-meteorological products, including satellite ones, to help users make tactical and strategic decisions, and also get information on extreme events, he said.
The data from the BMD and the BWDB has used for the production of agromet advisories and other sets of information for around 30,000 lead farmers.
The information will be translated and verified by the technical committee at the DAE, officials said.
An automatic rain gauge collects rainfall data and then automatically shows or transfers the data to an adjacent monitor or to a remote database server without any manual labour.
Under the project, a total of 4,051 automatic rain gauges have been installed in 4,051 union councils.
These will incorporate union rainfall data, which will significantly improve the location-based agro-advisory.
Union-level data will be available both centrally and with the respective authorities.
Officials say one of the major objectives of the portal is to establish agro-meteorological touch screen kiosks in 487 upazilas with data display screens, printers installed in upazila agriculture offices.
Asked about accusations of mismanagement in the project at grass-roots level as there are reports of stealing equipment, Mr Kamal said overall monitoring and security have been strengthened in recent times.
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