Dry Land Agriculture in India

Agro-climatological and agro-meteorological studies play an important role in the improvement of crop production in the seasonally dry areas. In India still around 60% of the arable land under cultivation is at the mercy of “Rain God” or Rainfed. Agricultural meteorology, when properly used, assist in both the farmers at the field level and planners at the regional and national level with better cost-benefit ratio for all climate-related recommended practice. The three important areas that require the assistance of agro meteorologists under this condition are weather forecasting, crop planning and crop forecasting. The present book deals with extensive review of model, method and practices of (a) climatic and agro-climatic zonation, (b) weather forecasting for agriculture using agro-climatological procedures, (c) crop planning using agro climatological procedures, (d) crop forecasting using agro-meteorological procedure, etc. Contents 1. Introduction, 2. General climate of India, 3. Classification & quantification of agro climate, 4. Weather forecasting for agriculture: an agro climatological approach, 5. Crop planning: an agro climatological approach, 6. Crop forecasting: an agro meteorological approach, 7. Dry-land agriculture: agriculture systems, 8. Remote sensing technology: in agro meteorology, 9. Some practical problems and their solutions: in agro meteorology About the Author Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy had his post- graduation from Andhra University, and received his Ph.D. in Agricultural Meteorology from the Australian National University, Canberra. Dr. Reddy served India Meteorological Department. International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Institute of Inter-American Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA)IBrazil, Expert of Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO/ UN) / Mozambique, Argentina & Ethiopia and Chief Technical Advisor of World Meteorological Organization (WMO/UN) Ethiopia. Dr. Reddy authored around 300 articles, conference papers, and technical reports. He is Co-Editor of a book titled “Advanced Technologies in Meteorology”. Dr. Reddy also authored book titled “Andhra Pradesh Agriculture: Scenario of the Last Four Decades”(2000) Dr. Reddy’s name was included in the Marquis Who’s who in the World-1999. USA. Dr. Reddy is a life member & at present Hon. Secretary of the Society for Preservation of Environment and Quality of Life (SPEQL), Hyderabad and is Life Member of Indian Meteorological Society (IMS), New Delhi.