KATHMANDU, Nepal- In a bid to stop agricultural losses during the monsoon, the government of Nepal is mulling over to lessen its impact through an agricultural Information Management System after establishing weather monitoring radars nationwide.
The Ministry of Agricultural Development (MOAD) is preparing to launch the System in collaboration with Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (DHM) and Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC).
The system to be set up soon aiming to lessen the natural calamities like flood, with the cost of US$31 million support from the World Bank, will see the installation of three Doppler weather monitoring radars nationwide, which will forecast heavy rainfall and drought through DHM.
MOAD and NARC will alert agricultural extension workers about the forecasts and instruct them to advise farmers, largely via mobile phones.
The weather data produced from the system will be translated into simple language so that the farmers can understand easily
The system will depend on radio stations to reach farmers in case of no access of mobile.
In the meantime, local government agricultural offices have begun registering farmer groups, some 50 to date, it is learnt.
The country witnessed heavy loss of thousands of hectares of cultivated land due to the flood triggered by incessant rainfall in the past. For instance, in 2013 alone an estimated 10,000 hectares of land were lost following erosion, according to MoAD.
‘We cannot avert natural disasters but we can make the farmers better prepared with the help of timely information through an efficient communication system,’ IRIN news agency quoted MOAD’s senior official Shib Anand Shah as saying.
Nepal is among the most climate-vulnerable countries worldwide.
