India Meteorological Department (IMD) started weather services for farmers in the year 1945. It was broadcast by All India Radio in the form of Farmer’s Weather Bulletin (FWB). Subsequently, in the year 1976, IMD started Agro-Meteorological agriculturalAdvisory Service (AAS) from its State Meteorological Centers, in collaboration with Agriculture Departments of the respective State Governments. Though these services are being regularly provided by IMD for the past many years, the demand of the farming community could not be fully met due to certain drawbacks in the system. In view of that IMD launched Integrated Agromet Service in the country for 2007 in collaboration with different organisations/institutes. At present bulletins are being issued from three levels as mentioned below.

National Agromet Advisory Bulletin

The bulletin is prepared for national level agricultural-planning & management and is being issued by National Agromet Advisory Service Centre, Agricultural Meteorology Division, India Meteorological Department. Prime users of this bulletin are Crop Weather Watch Group, (CWWG), Ministry of agriculture..Bulletin is also communicated to all the related Ministries (State & Central), Organizations, NGOs for their use.

This bulletin is prepared for State level agricultural planning & management. These bulletins are issued from 22 AAS units at different State capitals. Prime user of this bulletin is State ACWWG. This is also meant for other users like Fertilizer industry, Pesticide industry, Irrigation Department, Seed Corporation, Transport and other organizations which provide inputs in agriculture.

This is prepared for the farmersof the districts. These bulletins are being issued from 30 AMFUs functioning at State Agricultural Universities. This contains advisories for all the weather sensitive agricultural operations form sowing to harvest. It also includes advisories for horticultural crops and livestock.. These weather based advisories are disseminated to the farmers through mass media dissemination, Internet etc as well as through district level intermediaries. The advisories will be communicated through multi-channel dissemination system.