Economic Assessment of Weather Based Agromet Advisories in Keonjhar District, Odisha

Abstract

Present study was conducted during Summer 2014-15 and 2015-16 and in Kharif 2014 and 2015 at village of Keonjhar district which comes under the North Central Plateau zone of Odisha to know the effectiveness and usefulness of Agro Advisory Services (AAS ) and quantify the economic benefits through adopting the agromet advisory in their day to day agricultural operations. For this purpose, two groups of farmers were selected namely, a group adopting the agro met advisories regularly in their operation (AAS farmers) and other group of farmers not aware of agromet advisories (Non-AAS farmers). 20 farmers (both AAS and Non AAS) were identified and AAS information was issued to only 10 farmers during summer and Kharif season and care was taken to implement the advisories by this group. Crop situation of these farmers was compared with nearby fields having the same crops where forecast is not adopted in non AAS farmers. Further expenditure incurred by the farmers from land preparation till the harvest at every stage has been worked out and crop growth and yields were monitored regularly in the farmer’s field belonging to both the groups. The crop growth and yield was observed to be good and high in case of farmers who have adopted the AAS information regularly compared to the farmers who have not adopted the AAS information. The net income of AAS farmer’s was about Rs. 22425 in case of Green Gram , Rs. 29395 in case of Rice crop and Rs 33002 in Maize over non AAS farmers whose income was Rs.13195 , Rs 23256 and Rs 21502, respectively. The farmers who have adopted the Agromet Advisories in their day to day operation have realized an additional benefit of 41.2 %, 20.8% and 34.8 %, in Green gram, Rice and Maize crops, respectively. This profit was due to the crop management done by the farmers according to agromet advisory bulletins. Thus, the application of agromet advisory bulletin, based on current and forecast weather is a useful tool for enhancing the production and income.