Context:
India’s small to medium farmers face a huge gap in information and require decision support for using modern agricultural techniques and practices Farmers need the following categories of information and decision support to improve both the productivity and profitability of their agricultural yield: What to grow? Appropriate Input Selection Where to access Finance? Focused advise during Growth Phase Harvesting time and technique Where to Sell? The problems are different for different farmers as each farm has its own pre-requisites. Moreover each farm has a unique input and output history and geo-physical characteristics. What is needed is an interaction between farmers who already have an intimate knowledge of their own Farm Plot and modern agricultural scientists and workers for a farm specific advisory in real time.
Technologies Proposed to be Developed
The Project aims to design, develop and pilot the following technologies to promote a farm specific Interactive Agriculture Advisory System
1. Multi-Media Interface between Mobile Phones and a Central Database
2. Farm Plot Historian Database System
3. Market Information Database
4. Voice based Interactive System
5. Multi-media Agri-Advisory System
6. Multi-party Conferencing system between farmers, experts and extension workers.
Based upon the above tools and technologies developed under this Project services in the agriculture sector can be identified that can contribute towards de-risking farmers.
These services have the potential for commercialization and involve multiple stakeholders including banks, insurance companies, government agencies and entrepreneurs.
Agriculture Advisory Service (AAS)
The Central Database, the Voice Based Interactive System; Multi-Media Agriculture Advisory System and the Multi-Party Conferencing System together will enable farmers to get advice pertaining to crop planning, inputs and markets with reference to their particular farm plot. Partners: NAIP (www.naip.icar.org.in)
Agriculture Disease Mitigation Service (ADMS)
This will be a specialized service designed to give focused and sustained advisory to any farmer who has registered for it. Using this service a farmer can get scientific advice on the state of his crop over a period of time from a panel of experts anywhere in the country or even abroad. This service can sometime be part of the AAS as well. Partners: IU-ATC (www.iu-atc.com)
Duration:
Two and a hald years starting from November 2009.
Scale:
The scale is such that one would be able to get an initial feedback about technologies / systems developed and assess whether scaling is meaningful or not. This would also enable us to get an estimate of the commercials involved in taking the technologies to other districts and states.
Districts: Kancheepuram, Erode, Dharmapuri in Tamil Nadu
Implementation Villages: 40 villages in three districts
Participating Farmers: 1200 farmers including large farmers
Crops Selected: Paddy, Groundnut, Brinjal, Sugarcane, Turmeric, Coconut, Tomato, Mango, and Tapioca
Implementation Partner: Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), Coimbatore
Other Partners: National Agro Foundation – Kancheepuram (NAF)
Erode Precision Farmers Association Co. Ltd. (EPFAC)
Dharmapuri Precision Farmers’ Agro Services
Ltd.(DPFASL)