EWS-KT Launches Weather-Based Action Messages for Bangladesh’s Farmers

Weather is an important factor in determining the success of any crop. This is why East-West Seed Knowledge Transfer Foundation, in collaboration with USAID and iPAGE, is piloting a project to provide weather-based agronomy advisory services to the smallholder farmers of Bangladesh.

The pilot aims to support 100 farmers in the Patuakhali district in south-central Bangladesh for a duration of 1 year. Based on real-time weather data and each farmer’s soil properties, the project will provide farmers with individually tailored action messages on vegetable production activities. 

“We have already installed the weather stations and will soon start collecting soil property information, which is needed for the advisory system to generate action messages for the farmers. With this project, we believe our farmers will be equipped to make timely decisions, which will help them improve their vegetable production,” said Yasin Kabir, Knowledge Transfer Manager for Bangladesh.

Our partner iPAGE has developed an AI-based decision support system that will use the weather data and the knowledge from EWS-KT to create customized action messages for the farmers. EWS-KT will lead the pilot implementation and disseminate the action messages, which will help the farmers plan their crop fertilization, irrigation scheduling, pest and disease management, and more. As the data set increases, the AI system will learn and adapt, improving the accuracy of the messages. 

This pilot project is supported by USAID, which is also facilitating the partnership between EWS-KT and iPAGE.