The damage caused by frosts to crops in the winter-spring period is significant both in production and in the plant capital of the country.

According to ELGA, between 2000 and 2009, frost caused 36% of all natural disasters in our country.

Particularly high is the value of the compensations that have been paid in connection with accidents in production or factory capital caused by frosts over the past 23 years, which are estimated at around 1.25 billion euros. Characteristically, two years ago, due to damage caused by frost, about 240 million euros had to be paid.

To limit both the damage to the country’s crop production and the additional burden on the ELGA budget, as well as the state budget, the Ministry of Rural Development and Food will introduce the application of frost warnings next week.

This app has been designed and developed by the Ministry of Agricultural Development and Food with the assistance of the National Meteorological Service (NMS) and the Hellenic Agricultural Insurance Organization (ELGA) to provide all the necessary information to enable the country’s farmers to cope with upcoming frosty events in time.

“This application will free the hands of our farmers,” Minister of Rural Development and Food Giorgos Georgantas told the Athens Macedonian News Agency, adding that “this is an easy-to-use application developed by YPAAT with the aim of providing timely and informed warning they need to take the necessary protective measures before and after frost.

It will be available in the cloud of the Ministry of Digital Governance (frost.getmap.gr), and by the end of next month the application will be ready for mobile phones.

This will provide the grower with the early and reliable warning needed to take the necessary protective measures before and after frost.

The information refers to the forecast of frosts for the next three days with a time step of one hour, so that all those interested can know exactly the start and end times of the phenomenon.

Manufacturers will be able to receive updates via notifications on their mobile phones or via email for their chosen region. In addition, the fact that the application was developed in a geographic information systems environment provides excellent spatial analysis and the ability to provide information even at the parcel level.

The project uses meteorological forecasts from the European Meteorological Center, which is the best in the world, so weather forecast data is obtained through EMY.

The total cost of the application for the Greek population is especially low, as it does not exceed 30,000 euros, and the data on which it is based is provided free of charge.

Source: RES