- NET Web Desk
‘Solidaridad Asia’ – a Civil Society Organization (CSO) which aims to provide scalable and economically effective sustainability solutions across agricultural sectors has recently developed the Smart Agri app, which provides farmers with satellite-based data on rainfall, temperature, humidity and other weather-related information via their mobile phones.
This technological endeavour is now supporting Assam’s tiny tea growers in combating the terrible impacts of climate change, such as excessive rainfall and soil erosion.
According to a Deccan Herald (DH) report, Kuladhar Moran – an Assam-based tea planter, is no longer concerned about unpredictable weather, as he is well-aware about the weather fluctuations.
The 35-year-old, who grows tea on a three-acre plot at Kordoiguri hamlet in Assam’s Tinsukia district, has access to weather data for the week, which he utilizes to choose when to irrigate, fertilize, and insecticide his tea estate.
“Because rain has gotten more unpredictable over time, making informed decisions about irrigation and fertilizer use has become more challenging. As there was no prediction for rain, the fertilizers and pesticides we put in tea gardens were frequently carried away by erratic rains. We had to use fertilizers or pesticides again, which resulted in a loss,” Moran, who took to tea cultivation in 2000, told DH.
Its worthy to note that Solidaridad Asia has installed atleast 43 weather data devices inside small tea plantations in Tinsukia, Jorhat, Dibrugarh, and Udalguri districts, where many people have taken up small-scale tea cultivation throughout the years.
“The devices capture information on weather, soil moisture, pest profile, leaf wetness, crop growth etc, and transmit it through satellite. It is then received by our system and reflected in our dashboard which is interpreted by our experts; necessary advisories are then generated. Based on the interpretation done on a weekly basis, the advisories are disseminated to growers through the Smart Agri Advisory App or through a Missed Call Alert System for those not having smartphones,” – informed the Programme Manager of Solidaridad Asia in Assam – Mokshadev Das.
