E-Technology in the Aid of Farmers: Overview

The Digital India initiative is one of the major breakthrough programmes of the NDA government. It was launched with three main objectives: (1) to develop a secure and stable digital infrastructure across the country (2) use this digital infrastructure to make government services reach nuke and corner of the country in a hassle free manner (3) to spread digital literacy in the country to enable people to reap the benefits of this digital infrastructure. In the entire initiative, making digital infrastructure reach the rural areas, which are one of the most neglected and backward areas of the country. Since 70 per cent of the population of India is dependent on agriculture, introducing the digital infrastructure in this sector will be the starting point of the campaign.

Advantages of IT in Agriculture

Information Technology or e-technology can be of huge benefit to the agricultural sector. It can be both direct and indirect.

Direct benefits

Technology here plays a direct role to enhance agricultural productivity. One such mechanism is precision farming, which is mostly common in the developed countries. It is a capital intensive form of farming in which large tracts of land have to be utilized. Some of the technology used in this form of farming is: remote sensing satellite technology, theories of agronomy and soil sciences, geographical information systems etc. But this facility is less suitable for a country like India where agriculture is largely a source of livelihood for the poorest strata, capital intensive development by the government involves huge cost of maintenance that the exchequer cannot afford currently. Nonetheless, some technology is being adopted that promote precision farming but more in the fashion of a welfare state which is labour intensive.

Indirect benefits

IT indirectly allows the farmers to gather quality information so that they can make an informed choice while carrying out agriculture and allied activities. In India, till date only conventional sources of information have been accessible to the farmers in the less remote villages. They are in need of timely and reliable sources of information. Further, the dynamic and competitive market today requires farmers to have quality information round the clock from a cost-effective and reliable resource. India has been working in this regard.

WTO and E-Technology for Indian Farmers

Recently, WTO efforts on agriculture have also necessitated the extensive use of e-technology in agriculture. It has started deregulating the sector to a great extent and any form uncompetitive regulation can affect India’s popularity as a founding nation of WTO as well as its economic credibility among the members. Some of the steps in e—technology that needs to be taken are:

Awareness database

This is a mechanism by which the rules and regulations of WTO are simplified. The language used in the provisions of WTO involves a large number of technical jargons, beyond the capacity of interpretation of ordinary agriculturalists. So, this database will interpret these provisions in a simple and unambiguous form to help all stakeholders understand the implications of WTO norms on Indian agriculture. It is of great significance because several government policies like tariffs, import quotas etc. are the primary means by which the agricultural sector has been surviving and growing. If they have to be phased out following WTO norms they will greatly lead to a collapse of this sector. This problem can be addressed by involving the stakeholders in the study of implications and taking suggestions from them. If the farmers get an analytical input on how their life is to be affected, they can make informed choices on the techniques used or the which crop to grow when. Moreover, analysis done by agriculturalists on the basis of this database can help improve agriculture without being affected by the norms.

Decision support system for farmers

Currently, Indian agriculture is not very competitive in terms of export. The WTO stipulations on export subsidies can improve the quality of farm products. But this benefit cannot be reaped if traditional methods of information dissemination and farming continue. Rather, there is a requirement of proper SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Oppurtunities and Threats) that has been used currently by only big business houses. The asking and answering of relevant questions that generate meaningful information for each activity will help in comparison with the conventional forms and help understand the means to gain competitive advantage. For assessing the strengths one needs have access to data on cost of cultivation, efficient agricultural practices and the better quality of inputs, which will be compared with the indigenous products or the ones being used now. Weaknesses can be accessed through the above information and corrective measures can be taken on the basis of it. Opportunities can be availed of by making the strong sectors even more competitive, which are cotton, milk products, fruits and oil seeds in case of India. It can be done through better forecast on the threats, macro-economic conditions in other countries etc. In this age of technology, all this is best done through the help of internet.

Systems allowing collective benefits

In order to exploit the export potentials provided by WTO norms there is a need to have huge size of landholdings. In fact, precision farming is possible through this. But in Indian villages landholding is divided into many small parts. So, the farmers need to be organized in cooperative alliances. The major hindrance to this is the geographical barriers which can be done away with through virtual settings like disposal of agricultural produce at attractive prices through online portal. Online bidding is also an effective mechanism but the same requires complicated IT systems with post harvest technologies, storage etc.

Value additions

One of WTO’s main focus has been value addition to agriculture as a means of reform. Therefore, farmers in India should be equipped to add more value to the agricultural output. It can be done by integrating the industries, aqua culture units, farms etc. through information technology. It will also be a source of information with respect to betterment of units, procedures for export, norms related to packaging etc.

Monitoring

This is required to maintain strong vigilance on external shocks in the economy related to export of agricultural products. A system will be required to monitor the international market status, international supply, demand, political disruptions etc. There needs to be a warning system to inform the farmers of any shocks in advance. It will provide data, periodic analytical reports and advanced alerts.

Constraints of Effective Dissemination

Some of the major setbacks in bringing e-technology to rural areas are:

Unorganized development

In case of implementation of every scheme, a delay and half-hearted development takes place in the rural areas. This scheme is no exception to it. Long back initiatives had been made to introduce IT services to the agricultural community. But there is a lot of red-tapism and duplication of efforts. There is a lack of coordination mechanism that will help in reaching the services to the grassroot level in the villages.

User-friendliness

• For the success of this scheme, the rural population has to be comfortable with the new developments. Graphic based presentation is important for enhancing this.
• Local language-India has a variety of local languages with several regional dialects. So, creating an exhaustive database of languages is a tedious task. There is a need to employ language experts from every area to develop this database, but getting such experts is again a difficult task given the size of the country.
• Electricity-This is the basic requirement for e-technology. But due to frequent power cuts it is difficult to achieve at present. There is still no strong scheme for ensuring 24/7 electricity supply in all remote villages.

E-Agriculture Initiatives

E-technology in agriculture cannot be regarded solely as an initiative under the Digital India campaign, similar steps although at a small level were taken up earlier also. Some of the initiatives taken by the government to introduce e-technology in agriculture are:

Agriculture Marketing Information Network (AGMARKNET)

• The Union Ministry of Agriculture had launched this scheme as early as in the year 2000. The objective was to link the 7000 agricultural wholesale markets of India with the Agricultural Marketing Boards and Directorates of the states through a website. This would assist in exchange of effective information. The portal is brought out by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) and provides information regarding following: generation and transmission of prices, arrival of commodity from the agricultural produce markets. The beneficiaries of this website are farmers, policymakers, consumers, traders, academic institutions and the industries. The dissemination of information is further facilitated by the availability of information in 8 regional languages along with English. It provides segment-wise information and currently contains information about 300 commodities and 2000 varieties.

Agricultural Technology Management Agency (ATMA)

• It may be referred to as a group of people who are involved in agricultural activities and are interested in sustainable development of agriculture in the districts. It takes the responsibility of technology dissemination in the districts. In this way it promotes further research and extension activities in this sector. It ensures that the quality and types of technology used in agriculture is improved and promotes shared ownership for agricultural technology system by key stakeholders. For this purpose, it develops tie-ups with private institutions and NGOs.

National Mission on Agricultural Extension and Technology (NMAET)

• This was implemented during the 12th Plan period. It has four sub missions which are related to: agricultural mechanization, plant protection and plant quarantine, agricultural extension and seed and planting material. Its main aims include extensive and interactive methods of dissemination of information, using ICT, popularizing the modern and appropriate technologies, strengthening institutions that promote mechanization, making available quality seeds etc. All this being done by organizing the famers into interest groups that form Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs).

Voice Krishi Vigyan Kendra

• It is an extension of the Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) by greater emphasis on the aspect of e-technology. The voice KVKs are group of advisors who remain connected through mobile and internet technologies. Two parties interact through the means of this technology. It is done through the agropedia platform that facilitates interaction through amplification i.e. either one person talking to many or many to one person and persistence i.e. storing the messages sent and allowing them to be retrieved, monitoring the developments and other facilities of electronic storage and semantic technology.

Agropedia

• It is an initiative by ICAR to use social networking technology to spread agricultural information.

Sanchar Shakti Scheme

• It was launched in 2009 by the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) in the form of a wireless broadband scheme. Its main target is to help the women self-help group members who are involved in agricultural activities in rural areas. It is a kind of Mobile Value Added Services (VAS) that provides customized information related to the diverse activities to these women through easier accessibility and effective assimilation.

Sandesh Pathak

• An app that was developed by C-DAC Mumbai, IIT Madras, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Hyderabad, C-DAC Thiruvananthapuram to facilitated reading out of messages for the benefit of farmers, is now being provided by the App store of Mobile Seva project of the Government of India.

M-Kisan SMS Portal

• It enables the organizations of the central and state governments relating to agriculture and allied sectors to provide information or advisories or services to the farmers through the method of text message or SMS in the native language of the farmers. It boosted the Kisan Call Centre where farmers are now comfortable to call up to get any additional information.

National Agriculture Market

• This project was announced under the budget of 2014-15 and is actually a pet project of under the Digital India Campaign. It was launched on 14th April 2016 in a phased manner. Its aim is to set up a pan-India electronic trading portal to link the existing APMCs and other market yards for creating unified national market for all agricultural commodities. It has a physical market behind this virtual market. The process of implementation is still going on, with the first phase connecting 250 mandis across eight states. It is a joint initiative by the Agri-Tech Infrastructure Fund (ATIF), Department of Agriculture and Cooperation (DAC) and the Ministry of Agriculture. The facilities will be disseminated through the Small Farmers Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC). The Central government will bear the cost of software as well pay Rs 30 lakhs per mandi per market for the required infrastructure development. By opening this portal for trading, the farmers have access to the national markets, giving more options for sale. It also helps the bulk buyers, exporters etc to participate directly in trading at the local mandis and get the required produce without having to involve intermediaries. It will also promote scientific storage and movement of the agriculture goods.

Future Prospects

With the Bharat Net Project due to be completed by March 2019, technological development of agriculture is going to be highly feasible. User friendly systems incorporating local languages of farmers are the recent priority. With IT parks mushrooming all over the country, it is not impossible to develop a database involving all the aspects of Indian agriculture. A Long Term Agricultural Policy has been developed that provides an exhaustive list of the areas to be covered by e-technology.  Upgrading the specialized institutions with e-technology is further helping in revolutionizing the system.  It will facilitate modularization of the task, better control and help in  achieving quick results. In fact, digitization has already occurred in most of the agricultural research institutes.

With the development of business process outsourcing, the software companies can also take up the task of developing suitable modules for farmers and persons involved in agriculture and the results can be achieved at a relatively quicker pace. A coordinating agency must be set up at the centre to provide an advisory role and also evolving a standard interface for the users, broad designing and monitoring of the progress.

State of the art technologies like geographical information systems (GIS), bio-engineering, remote sensing etc. coupled with satellite technology needs to be incorporated as soon as possible to promote export advantage post-WTO regime.

While we talk of technology development, it must not be forgotten that the target groups are hardly friendly with computers or latest technology. Thus, there is a need to promote education to make them reap maximum benefits. Some aspects of the education involve using touch screen kiosks, better learning of computer language, reading applications etc. After this, care needs to be exercised to disseminate useful information through the mechanisms stated above like the Krishi VIgyan Kendra, ATMA etc.