Current World Environment

Introduction

Early warnings and climate forecasts have a great potential to prevent weather-related losses and damage to agriculture. Due to global warming, it is predicted that farm income will decrease by 15 to 25 percent, and economic losses will get worsen as temperatures rise¹. The sensitivity to climate change makes it more difficult to achieve food security and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), primarily because it has a diverse range of effects on the most vulnerable². 

Tamil Nadu recorded with the highest frequency of droughts during the past century³. Due to the lack of a monsoon, the semi-arid state experienced major damage from drought in the most recent years, 2002–2003, 2009 2016 and 2019⁴. Tamil Nadu's weather-based hazards, which include hereditary geo-location risks, transferrable risks, and risks that can be reduced by the introduction of technology to crop yield, are distinct from those in most other Indian states⁵.

In developing nations, mobile phone technology has given farmers a good platform to exchange knowledge and information with one another on the move, such as market rates and weather information^6,7. Men and women now have easier access to information thanks to mobile phones, raising their level of living^8,9. 

The Automated Weather-based Agro Advisory Service (AAS) from TNAU is the best alternative for responsive farming and promoting sustainability in farming amid climate variability and climate change. This  web cum mobile app was developed by the Scientists of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore.  Given that all agricultural operations depend on the weather, AAS is regarded as a blessing for the farming sector. AAS is weather-smart and understands the needs of farmers¹⁰.

With this background, an analytical study was taken up with the objective of to know the farmers’ perception awareness about the TNAU-AAS – Web cum Mobile App in western Agro Climatic Zone of Tamil Nadu.

Materials and Methods

Study Area and period

The current investigation was purposefully carried out in selected blocks viz., Anamalai, Thondamuthur, Annur, Karamadai, Pollachi North of Coimbatore and Pongalur block from Tiruppur from March 2021 to March, 2022 (Figure1).

Figure 1: Study Area for Survey     Click here to view Figure

TNAU-AAS App

The block-level Automatic Weather Station (AWS) placed at Tamil Nadu will continuously sense the weather data and communicate with the central server of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University. Using regional climate models (WRF), the block level weather forecast with a lead-time of 6 days will be created and stored on the server. The weather data from the previous six days and the six-day prediction will be combined to create weather-based agro advisories at the block level, which will be distributed to farmers via mobile SMS for the important crops. These 54 weather windows can be used to produce agro advisories for specific crops to be distributed to farmers in a domain area under automated agro advisory services with certainty and can be seen in aas.tnau.ac.in (web page) and mobile app. Through social media, the farmers are aware of the agriculture portals which helps the farmers to know and share the weather based agro advisories.

Figure 2a: Web Page of TNAU AAS   Click here to view Figure

Figure 2b: Android Mobile App of TNAU AAS   Click here to view Figure

Farmers’ Survey and Interviews

In the context of the agricultural information sources that were accessible in the study area, the current study considered the usage of mobile phones for information transfer. A random sample of 40 farmers was selected from each representative blocks of the study area. The frequency and percentage analysis were employed to assess the farmer´s knowledge and perception about agromet advisory services. The convenience sample approach was used for getting the information regarding the access to internet on mobile phone. Due to pandemic situation prevailed during the study period (March 2021- March 2022), all the required details were collected using telephonic survey from the respective blocks. During pandemic period the data were collected through telephonic conversation with 180 farmers and through WhatsApp group. During post pandemic period, survey was conducted with 60 farmers.  All together 240 samples were collected for the study. But no variations were observed in the farmer’s response during the above said periods. The data also include information on farmer’s perception towards Agromet Advisory Services in the Western Agro Climatic Zone of Tamil Nadu.

Results and Discussion

Socio-economic characteristics of farmers in Western ACZ 

The socio-economic characteristics of farmers in the Western ACZ of Tamil Nadu is given in Table 1. Considering the age, the respondents from middle age was 43 per cent followed by young age with 35 per cent. The educational status of the farmers inferred that 44 per cent completed Higher Secondary graduation followed by 38 per cent of the respondent’s completed graduation. 73 per cent of the respondents were male while 27 per cent were female. In the WACZ, 41 per cent of the respondents had 16 to 25 years while 31 per cent had more than 25 years of farming experience respectively. The land holding information inferred that 69 per cent of the respondents hold medium size of land holding while 17 per cent of the respondents had large farm size. TNAU- AAS app requires knowledge to input the basic information given in the app and continuous follow up in receiving the SMS is needed for the successful weather based information. Since, 44 per cent of the respondents had Higher Secondary school of education and majority had middle age group, whom were more interested in handling this app. A line of confirmation with this study was given¹¹.

Table 1: Socio-economic characteristics of farmers in Western ACZ of Tamil Nadu(n=240)

Farmers access to Information source on New Technology

Farmers in the study had potential access to smart phones and this was in accordance who reported that the third generation of mobile phones were widespread among farmers¹². Smart phones (83 %) had an easy-to-use features and applications and act as widely used source of information acquisition due to its high frequency of utilization¹³. This was followed by Progressive farmers (78 %) by which face to face interaction was possibledue to geographical proximity of the fields. Parallelly, Newspapers (75 %) have separate page for farming community to discuss the important topics related to agriculture (Figure 3). Farmers are said to adopt and utilise mobile phones more frequently for agricultural purposes since they are better equipped to do a number of tasks, like receiving SMS and downloading web-based applications, on smartphones ^14,15.

Figure 3: Information source of new technology   Click here to view Figure

Farmers access to Agricultural Portals through social media

The smart phones were widely used by the farmers as a source and medium to obtain information regarding farming to make better decisions. 75 per cent of respondents used Whats app to know about agricultural portals through social media (Figure 4) Since, most of the respondents in the study area comes under middle and young age group, they were familiar in creation of whats app group and sharing of the farm new practices. 

Figure 4: Agricultural portal through social media.   Click here to view Figure

Farmers exposure to weather forecast

Among the different modes of exposure to weather forecast, 80 per cent respondents use mobile app to know about weather forecast (Figure 5). Many weather apps are available in the smart phones which ease the farmers to know about the weather forecast locally. Moreover, SMS from TNAU were accessed regularly by more than 60 per cent of the respondents to take up the tactical farm decisions. Another study in line found that farmers preferred to get weekly weather-based agricultural advise services from TNAU agricultural specialists¹⁶.

Figure 5: Exposure to weather forecast information   Click here to view Figure

Farmers response to TNAU-AAS App Handling skill

Through the telephonic survey and creation of Whats app group, registration of farmers in TNAU AAS app was done with smart phones. 92 per cent of the respondents could download the app from the play store, 83 % respondents could enter the details required by the app, 
74 % respondents could enter the crop details in the app, 67 % respondents could access the message delivered in the app. 59 % respondents could follow up the messages in the app (Figure 6). Awareness should be created to realize that the farmers need to follow the advisories from the sowing to harvest to achieve better productivity and good income. 

Figure 6: TNAU App handling skill by respondents   Click here to view Figure

Registered Farmer's perception towards Agromet Advisory Services

The perception about the Agro Advisory services (AAS) was rated as good by 45 per cent and average by 40 per cent of the respondents (Table 2). The quality of the information disseminated from the AAS was rated as good by 38 per cent and average by 51 per cent of the respondents. The willingness to pay for the AAS inferred that 65 per cent were not ready for the paid services while 15 per cent responded positively for the paid services and 20 per cent responded they were unable to give a clear picture towards payment structure. The advantage and requirement of AAS towards farmers’ need revealed that the AAS given during spraying operations against plant protection (94 %) followed by general farm operations (85%) and irrigation scheduling (83%). A parallel information on spraying operation importance on AAS in Tiruvallur district was reported¹⁷.  The overall satisfaction of AAS was realized by 79 per cent of the respondents in the study area. This information collected from the respondents throws light to further improve the quality of the AAS by working out permutations and combinations of different weather combinations to the crops listed in the App. 

Table 2: Registered Farmer's perception towards AAS in Western ACZ of Tamil Nadu

Conclusion

Information and communication technologies are becoming more prevalent in developing nations for the advancement of various people, including educators and farmers. The awareness level and adoption of TNAU-AAS Web cum Mobile App in the western ACZ of Tamil Nadu was explored in the current study. The app handling skill of the farmers were assessed in the present study to improvise the app for easy handling by the farmers. The feedback obtained based on the perception of this AAS provides an insight to improve the efficacy of the contents in the app to reduce the risk of the farmers due to various weather vagaries. To assure the quality, timeliness, and reliability of information, it is crucial to fully utilise the potential of information distribution made possible by mobile telephony coupled with supporting infrastructure and capacity building among farmers.

Acknowledgment

The author would like to thank Tamil Nadu Agricultural University for allowed to take up this web app services perception in Tamil Nadu.

Conflict of Interest

There is no conflict of interest in the manuscript.

Funding source

There is no funding or financial support for this research work

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