Bengaluru: To protect crops from extreme weather conditions, coffee growers in the state are setting up automated weather stations in their estates.
The India Meteorological Department and the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre, along with various research and educational institutions, are supporting estate owners in this venture.
Coffee Board officials said that weather observatories are being set up at multiple locations. Some of them are getting permission and certification from the board. These have been set up at 10 locations, including Kodagu, Chikkamagaluru and Hassan.
“There is a need for accurate weather information during flowering, harvesting and drying of beans. There have been instances in the past of beans and flowers being damaged due to extreme weather conditions. The IMD observatories are located far from the required locations and timely updates are not always available. Hence, estate owners are setting up their own observatories,” the official said.
The board is also working on setting up weather observatories in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. “Setting up weather stations involves cutting-edge technology. The idea is to get information about weather and climate change from remote locations,” the official said.
We are partnering with Deep Flow Technologies, an agri-tech startup incubated at the Nadathur S Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (NRSCEL) at IIM-Bangalore, to set up enhanced weather stations and Indra Weather stations on estates, said Rishina Kuruvilla, head of CSR and sustainability at Kelachandra Coffee in Chikkamagaluru.