The Shivraj Singh Chouhan government's scheme to send the state's farmers to foreign countries to learn agriculture techniques is more of a populist measure than a serious effort towards improving their lives, say agriculture experts. Instead, they feel, there should be optimum utilisation of resources and techniques in the state to make agriculture a profitable proposition and also value addition to agriculture produce which can be done easily without visiting foreign countries.

Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Sunday announced during the 'Kisan Mahapanchayat' that the state's farmers would be sent to foreign lands to help them learn better agriculture techniques.

"I don't think it's of any good use. As much as 60% of agriculture in the state is rain-fed and 70% of farmers have holdings of one acre or less. Furthermore, there is a vast difference between the conditions prevailing here and in foreign countries," agriculture policy expert Ajay Kumar told HT. "In these circumstances, I doubt how farmers can possibly learn and replicate foreign techniques here," he added.

As per experts, there is a vast difference between the prevailing conditions and climate in India and foreign countries. Their agriculture model is quite different. Farming over there is more mechanized, industrialised and there are farmers who own stretches of land in the multiple of hundreds of acres. The Met office has said that due to presence of western disturbance over Jammu and Kashmir and an upper air cyclonic system over Rajasthan, a lot of moisture is being incurred in state. In addition, the winds have remained southeasterly or southwesterly in direction. “Because of this we are also expecting thunder showers in some parts of West MP and isolated places in east MP on Tuesday too,” a Met official said.

Earlier, the day and the preceding night remained quite warm in city as temperatures both day and night shot up considerably in the state due to high content of moisture in air and southerly direction of wind.

Bhopal recorded minimum temperature of 17.8 degrees on Monday, seven degrees above the normal and 4.5 degrees over the minimum temperature recorded the previous night. The day also remained quite warm despite partial clouds in sky and minimum temperature shot up to 29.8 degrees, the highest recorded in the month yet. In other parts of the state too, temperatures have shot up. The Met office has predicted similar weather conditions for next two days. After this, when the skies clear out, the night temperatures are likely to fall.