This blog post is a guest contribution by my brother @Conquerias24 who’s a Post Graduate in Economics from Madras School of Economics.
Use of Electronic technology in agriculture can be put under two categories:
Direct contribution to agricultural productivity
Indirect contribution to empower informed and quality decisions
Advantages of E-Technology for farmers
Agricultural innovations
Employment, Efficiency and Energy: 3E into farm economy
Improved decision making by farmers wrt agricultural activities
Planning: Farming software that determines the best aids to use on the farm
Better outreach - Spread of ideas and innovations to all levels of farming sects.
Community participation - improved union among local farmers → better income
Info access: agri, markets, efficiency etc. which can eventually enhance the quality of farmers’ lives
Challenges with respect to E-Technology for farmers
Inadequate hardware access
Poor reach of the technology
Unequal distribution of technologies
Financial Challenges related to infra development
Inadequate access to telecommunication infrastructure
Technology accessible only to large farmers - Widen wealth gap
Language and content limitations - Not accessible in regional languages
low literacy rate among farmers and the digital divide -> Rise of a new class of middlemen providing ICT services to farmers
Government Initiatives:
AGMARKNET
Agricultural Marketing Information Network links 7,000 agricultural wholesale markets with State Agricultural Marketing Boards for effective information exchange.
e-choupal
ITC initiative provides alternative marketing channel, information on weather, agricultural practices, input sales, etc.
Direct benefit transfer (DBT) Central Agri Portal
DBT Agri Portal is a unified central portal for agricultural schemes across the country
National Agriculture Market (e-NAM)
The National Agriculture Market scheme envisages e-marketing platform at national level to support creation of infrastructure to enable e-marketing in regulated markets across the country
Kisan Call centre
Main aim of the project is to answer farmers’ queries on a telephone call in their own dialect to harness potential of ICT
Village Resource Centres
Village Resource Centers provide space-based services in the rural areas. They use Satellite Communication (SATCOM) network and Earth Observation (EO) satellite data to reach out to the villages to address the needs of the local people in villages themselves.
Digital Agriculture Mission
Aims to support and accelerate projects based on new technologies, like AI, block chain, remote sensing and GIS technology and use of drones and robots
AgriStack
A collection of technology-based interventions in agriculture - to provide them end to end services across the agriculture food value chain
Other State level Initiatives
eSagu
‘eSagu’ is a web-based personalized agro-advisory system which uses Information Technology to solve the unscientific agricultural practices.
AGRISNET
Aimed to integrate cross-functional processes of the Department of Agriculture in Tamil Nadu, to effectively and efficiently communicate informational services to the farming community
Jio Agri(JioKrishi) Platform
Launched in 2020, it digitises the agricultural ecosystem along the entire value chain to empower farmers
Way Forward
Promote private participation in AgriTech.
Offer vital role to AgriTech players in tech like IoT, AI/ML, drones etc.
Holistic Ecosystem & Multi-Stakeholder approach with GoI as enabler
Influential factors- technology affordability, ease of access and operations, easy maintenance of systems and supportive government policies.
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