Farmers to Receive Early Weather Alerts Through Farmer Cards

Forecasts will be sent by SMS every six hours under normal conditions and more frequently during disasters, as needed.

Cardholders will receive 10 types of services, including weather forecasts, support for agricultural supplies, low-interest loans, irrigation facilities and crop insurance. The government aims to bring approximately 24 million farmers under the programme over the next four years.

Timely forecasts will help farmers plan cultivation, irrigation, fertiliser application, pesticide use and harvesting. For example, an advance warning of rain during the rice harvest would allow farmers to prepare to bring their crops indoors sooner. Planning irrigation around expected rainfall could also reduce water use and production costs. Warnings about storms and other adverse weather would help farmers protect their crops and agricultural supplies.

The Agriculture Information Service (AIS), under the Department of Agricultural Extension, will implement the initiative. It will send automated weather forecasts directly to farmers’ mobile phones, saving them the trouble of searching for weather information themselves.

According to programme figures, work is underway to provide cards to 4.3 million farmers during the 2026–27 financial year. Data collection has progressed in 1,681 agricultural blocks across 503 upazilas in all 64 districts. Information on 2.2 million farmers has been collected so far, and 900,000 bank accounts linked to Farmer Cards have been opened.

The programme was launched simultaneously in 77 upazilas across 56 districts on October 1. This phase aims to cover 110,165 farmers, including 100,047 selected to receive support for agricultural supplies.

Earlier, during the pre-pilot phase from March to June this year, cards were distributed to 20,832 farmers in 11 agricultural blocks across 11 upazilas in 10 districts, covering all eight divisions.

During that phase, 20,480 landless, marginal and small-scale farmers received financial incentives at an annual rate of Tk 2,500 each, totalling Tk 51.2 million.