Agro-met Advisory Service for National/Local level Planning in Nepal and Bangladesh
The Agro-met Advisory Service for National/Local level Planning in Nepal and Bangladesh integrates weather and climate data with information about agriculture practices to provide data analysis support to the professionals responsible for developing agro-met advisory services for government structures and farmers. Through this collaborative work, an integrated agriculture monitoring dashboard (Agriculture Information Dashboard – AID) was developed to facilitate decision making at a central level and also enable agriculture experts to translate scientific data into commonly understood agriculture advisories.
The data products include accurate baselines on crop type maps and farming practice calendars valid at the sub-district level. The dashboard will also utilize the long term (30+ years) satellite-based Climate Hazards group IR Precipitation with Stations (CHIRPS) and the NASA South Asia Land Data Assimilation System (SALDAS) to generate indices for meteorological drought, agricultural drought, hydrological drought, and seasonal weather outlook to facilitate short- to medium-term advisory services.
Rationale
At present, agriculture advisory services in the Hindu Kush Himalaya region are based on expert opinions and lack quantitative data on agro-climatic conditions and forecasts. The resulting agricultural advisories are limited and cannot meet the demand from agricultural producers for information to make day-to-day decisions related to their farming practices. To develop relevant and comprehensive agriculture advisory services, decision makers require access to locally calibrated operational climate datasets along with an up-to-date farming practice calendar, information on local crop distribution and plant disease outbreaks, and early warning on disasters.
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Users
Nepal Agriculture Research Council
World Food Programme