The latest state of the art Agricultural Decision Support System (ADSS) has been set up by the Ministry of Environment, SD and Disaster and Beach Management in collaboration with the Ministry of Agro Industry and Food Security and the Mauritius Meteorological Services in the context of the Africa Adaptation Programme. The ADSS comprises an IT system,with a high performance data server connected to seven agro-meteorological stations installed at strategic locations namely Wooton, Reduit, Barkly, Plaisance, Plaine Sophie, Flacq and Richelieu.
These stations collect real time meteorological data (e.g. temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and wind direction, solar radiation, soil humidity) and transmit same to the data server through a telemetry gateway. These real time agro-meteorological data are very useful in assisting the agricultural community (farmers, extension services, researchers as well as policy makers) in timely decision making for climate related risk management. Free access to these data can allow
a) Farmers to make decision in planning their day to day farm operations such as irrigation scheduling, optimum seeding time, timely pest and disease management and thus improve their crop productivity; and
b) Researchers to carry phenological studies, crop modeling, disease modeling and plant pest and disease forecasting and thus develop risk management strategies.
