New weather derivative aims to protect farmers

Highlighting the potential benefits of the recent Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX) and the India Meteorological Department (IMD), Dr Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, Director General of IMD, said the collaboration would provide critical climate insights for the agriculture sector.

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He noted that farmers and agri-based industries can use historical weather data to assess whether areas are drought-prone, flood-prone, or receive normal rainfall.

"So, under this memorandum of understanding, rainfall has been taken into consideration because rain is the most important parameter concerning agriculture and hence the economy. Towards this direction, the historical data will also be provided by IMD so that there can be an assessment with respect to the climatic hazard potential of rainfall during the monsoon season. And also the real-time rainfall; whatever is available from IMD in the gridded format or point rainfall will be provided to assess the variation of rainfall on their end and also to provide the services," he added.