Nafed submits proposal on new agri forecasting

The National Agricultural and Cooperative Marketing Federation (Nafed) has submitted a proposal on ground thruthing of agricultural yield assessment to the Department of Agriculture.

The proposal is under consideration of the department. When approved, this will narrow the wide gap between estimates and actual production.

The ground thruthing will form an important aspect of the Forecasting Agricultural Output using Space Agro-meteorology and Land-based Observations (FASAL) programme, launched by the Union Ministry of Agriculture in September, 2006.

"As a part of this programme, the Space Application Centre (Ahmedabad) is forecasting crop production using remote sensing of weather and field data. However, there are gaps in this and ground thruthing will complement the remote sensing data to provide greater accuracy", said S R K Varshney, additional managing director of Nafed.

Ground thruthing will enable comprehensive data-collecting, involving the minimum information required for yield estimation of the focussed crop. The information would consist of soil properties, crop characteristics, pest management, disease incidence and so on.

Observations on minimum and maximum temperature, evaporation and rainfall will be made at Nafed's own observatories to be established at various locations.

During the project duration, a temporary weather station for the collection of weather data will be established at the block level. A trained local person who will collect the data will also maintain the weather station, said Varshney.

Initially, the programme would cover two commodities, wheat and rice in select states. Later on, it will be extended to all major crops across the country. The crop output forecast will be made one month before the harvest, taking into account drought, floods, frost and other weather situations.