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Digital Agriculture

Posted on September 15, 2021 by admin1  1694

In News

  • The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers welfare has signed 5 MOUs with private companies for taking forward Digital Agriculture.
    • MOUs aimed at increasing farmers’ income and protecting their produce.

What is Digital Agriculture?

  • A Digital agriculture mission has been initiated for 2021 -2025 by the government for projects based on new technologies.
    • The new technologies which will be harnessed are AI, block chain, remote sensing and GIS technology, use of drones and robots etc. 
  • To transform the Agriculture sector, attempts need to imbibe an ecosystem thinking and a digital ecosystem. 
  • The Agriculture value chain extends from crop selection to crop management and the market. 
    • It involves public and private players in agricultural inputs and services and also logistics. 
  • Establishing a digital ecosystem of agriculture needs to take a long-term view of multiple aspects like 
    • Interoperability, 
    • Data governance, 
    • Data quality, 
    • Data standards, 
    • Security and privacy, and 
    • Promoting innovation. 
  • A significant requirement is adoption of a decentralized, federated architecture.
    • This architecture must 
      • Assure autonomy to the service providers and all other actors and 
      • Ensure interoperability at the same time.

Steps to implement the Digital Agriculture

  • Recognizing the importance of Digitization in Agriculture the Department is creating a federated Farmers Database.
  • Different Services will be built around this Database so as to develop an organic Digital Ecosystems of Agriculture. 
  • Federated farmers’ databases will be linked by the land records of farmers from across the country. 
    • It will create a unique Farmer ID. 
  • This unified database can serve as the repository of the information of all benefits and supports of various schemes of the Central & State Government.
    • It can be the source for accessing information for providing benefits to farmers in the future.
  • So far, the database is ready with details of around 5.5 crore farmers.

How will these Pilot Projects Benefit the Farmers?

  • Informed Decisions:
    • These pilot projects will enable farmers to make informed decisions on various issues like:
      • what crop to grow, 
      • what variety of seed to use and 
      • what best practises to adopt to maximise the yield. 
  • Planning of Procurement and Logistics:
    • The agriculture supply chain players can plan their procurement and logistics on precise and timely information. 
  • Fetch Best Prices for Farmers:
    • Farmers can take informed decisions about whether to sell or store their produce and when and where and what price to sell.

Conclusion and Way Forward

  • The digital revolution is touching every sphere of life and hence it is high time to bring agriculture in its ambit.
  • The MoUs to rope in the private sector can help in 
    • quicker modernisation of Farms,
    • easier access to various schemes and 
    • subject matter knowledge.
  • Such practices must be studied in depth via pilot projects and extended to whole India if found successful.

Other Schemes for Farmers

National e-Governance Plan in Agriculture (NeGPA):

  • It was initially launched in seven selected States in the last quarter of 2010-11.
    • This Scheme has subsequently been extended to the 2nd Phase to cover all the States and 2 UTs from 2014-15. 
  • Aim:
    • To achieve rapid development in India through use of Information & Communication Technology (ICT).
    • It will provide timely access to agriculture related information for the farmers.
  • The possible components for modern management of agriculture are 
    • Remote Sensing
    • Geographical Information System
    • Data Analytics
    • Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning and 
    • Internet of Things.
  • Under this initiative, one Stop Window-Farmers Portal (www.farmer.gov.in) has been developed for dissemination of information like.
    • seeds variety, 
    • Storage Godown, 
    • Pests and plant diseases, 
    • Best Agricultural Practices, 
    • Watershed, 
    • Mandi details etc.
  • SMS/mKisan Portal (www.mkisan.gov.in) has also been developed.
    • It will send advisories on various crop related matters to the registered farmers through SMSs.
    • In mkisan. more than 5 crores farmers are registered for receiving crop advisories through SMS.
  • Various mobile applications including KisanSuvidha have also been developed.
    • They facilitate dissemination of information to farmers on the critical parameters viz., 
      • Weather, Market Prices, 
      • Plant Protection, 
      • Agro-advisory, 
      • Extreme Weather Alerts, 
      • Input Dealers ( of Seed, Pesticide, Fertilizer, Farm Machinery),
      • Soil Health Card, 
      • Cold Storage & Godowns, 
      • Veterinary Centre & Diagnostic labs, 
      • Crop Insurance Premium Calculator 
    • This app launched in 2016, has more than 13 lakh downloads.

Strengthening/Promoting Agricultural Information System (AGRISNET):

  • It is the scheme for strengthening the IT infrastructure of the Department and its offices. 
  • Fund allocated under the scheme is also utilized for making payment to the vendor for sending SMS through mkisan portal.

Source: PIB

 
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