Extent of Awareness and Adoption Level of MDWA and Weather Health Indices Used in Roving Seminars on Weather Climate and Farmers(WcFs) in Andhra Pradesh

摘要

During 2007-2014, in the State of Andhra Pradesh (undivided), India, fourteen (14) Roving Seminars were organized on "Weather Climate and Farmers (WCFs)". An evaluation study was conducted to understand the outcome of these seminars on adoption of weather and climate information in their daily farm operations, by using "Murthy's Daily Weather and Agriculture (MDWA)". An open ended interview schedule was used for collecting the data and results of the analysis indicated that weather and climate play a vital role in all the farm operations. Weather/climate is a non- monetary farm input and the impact of "Climate change" is observed on the crops and there is an urgent need to address the impacts of climate change on agriculture. Around 27 per cent of thefarmers, agricultural scientists, agricultural polytechnic students followed " Murthy's Daily Weather and Agriculture (MDWA)" and weather health indicesand used weather as one of the non- monetary inputs. They were able to reduce the cost of cultivationof crops by 11% and improved the quality of their produce by 2-3 per cent. Also, 55 per cent of the farmers and agricultural polytechnic students believed strongly that they were not only able to substantially reduce the cost of cultivation of crops butalso obtained quality produce by following MDWA and weather health indicesthrough the knowledge gained in the roving seminars. However , they were unable to quantify in monetary terms. The remaining 18 per cent of the respondents were not able to use MDWA, but able to understand the value of weather health indices.