ICT for Agriculture Technology Dissemination

Mukesh Pandey, Deepali Tewari Pandey & Kamini Bisht

The main phases of the agriculture industry are crop cultivation, water management, fertilizer application,
fertigation, pest management, harvesting, post harvest handling, transporting of food/food products,
packaging, food preservation, food processing/value addition, food quality management, food safety, food
storage and food marketing.

All agricultural extension and farmer-outreach programs face three major challenges viz. ensuring cost-
effective outreach, designing solutions tailored to needs of individual farmers and cultivating an image that is
farmer-friendly. Large sections of the farming community, particularly the rural folk, do not have access to
the huge knowledge base acquired by agricultural universities, extension centers and businesses. However,
internet and mobile networks have the potential to provide agro-information services that are affordable,
relevant to needs (timely and customized), searchable and up to date.

Information Communication Technology can provide vital access to information, markets by connecting the
rural poor and marginalized to the world's information resources and opportunities. However, not all persons
have access to this information. The inequality in opportunities presented by ICT is widest between urban and
rural groups, rich and poor, men and women and the educated and uneducated. Despite this, ICT use in rural
areas is increasing, such as the internet and cell phones and the individual, community and national benefits
they bring by making information available at the fingertips are forever emerging.

Among various initiatives required to improve farm productivity, four critical areas are highly conducive for
usage of ICT. IT can help reach the large number of farmers, which otherwise is not possible. The areas where
ICT can help are: 

 Farmer Education.

 Back up services

 Commercial Information and

 Help in selling produce

By increasing access to better opportunities to the rural farmer the economy gains in terms of better
integrated and competitive product markets, the local family amplifies its opportunity for income; and the
society gains from the spillover effects of less poverty and more economically and socially productive citizens.
For example, research from a 'Village Pay Phone' project in Bangladesh indicates that the introduction of
telephones to the village allowed the villagers to eat well all year round compared to only 9.9 months when
there were no phones. Benefits such as these become diffused manifold in theeconomy and the society.
(Global e-governance readiness report, 2005)

Today farmers seem to be more innovative and extension agencies/personnel have become laggards. Extension
personnel are unable to creatively respond to the change taking place in the environment and remain
duplication and tradition bound (Nagasri, 2000). Farmers need dynamic information relating to agricultural
rural development. There is presently a gap between what farm families need by way generic and dynamic
information and what the conventional extension agencies are able to provide. Therefore to satisfy the need
of farmers and farming communities, Information and Communication Technology would be very effective

Queries that an ICT hub can answer: The ICT hub provides answers of various agriculture based queries of
farmers and related people as given below:
agriculture based queries of farmers and related people as given below:

How to tackle Pest attack?

Farmer Education:
 India's average farm productivity in food grains is nearly one third of that of a comparable economy like
China. However, this average is a result of widely varying levels of productivity across the country. The highest
productivity figures achieved with Indian seeds and package of practices in adequately irrigated lands are
comparable to those reached anywhere in the world. Thus, the pressing need is to reduce the spread and pull
the average up. Extension services of the government have been resource intensive, limited by the extent of
actual coverage, competence, motivational and diligence levels of the individuals and their ability to stay
updated with latest developments. If we analyse the difference between the farming practices in developed
nations like USA and developing country like India, the biggest difference is in availability of information. The
gap between the 'information-rich' farmers of Punjab and 'information poor' farmers of Jharkhand can be
bridged by IT. A farmer's need can be divided into three hierarchical levels as follows.

Hierarchy of Farmer's needs

BASIC NEEDS: Which crops to sow?, Where to get the seeds from? How to fight different pests?, What are the
correct practices to follow?

Agricultural development can be stimulated if all these three needs can be catered to, for which availability of
timely, user friendly and accurate information will play a big role.IT can play a major role in updating the
farming community by ensuring information flow through agri-websites, enabling the industry to take an
updated, uniform database on farming practices to the individual villages, with the data customized to
individual agro-climatic zones. This website can be accessed through the Internet at nodes set up in major
villages in the local language. Such a movement can also include the channel members as active participants
creating a win-win situation.

Backup Services:

 It is not sufficient to provide the farmer exhaustive information through web-portals, his specific queries have
to be replied through on-line chats, he has to be provided with early warnings regarding pest onset and
weather forecasts for his local areas using remote sensing. Once the web portals attract large number of
farmers, lot of new set of industries interested in providing services like sowing, transportation and
mechanized farm operations like pest control or harvesting will get created.

Once, direct contact of farmers becomes feasible with the help of IT, another extremely and critically
important input i.e. farm credit sector can be handled much easily.

Commercial Information:

Real time information on all the agri-inputs like seeds, and crop protection chemicals, nearest vendors,
international sources can be provided. Once the service providers feed farmer with all the information, he can
intelligently decide to carry out certain operations on his own or outsource them.

Help in better price realization:

 Most of the small farmers sell their produce to middlemen or in the nearest mandis where the middlemen
decide prices. The farmer has virtually no interactions with the taluka nor does he know the prices ruling at
nearby markets. By making commodity prices and market information on a real time basis available on the
Internet, the farming community can be provided with choices that they lack today. This will ensure better
price realization and stimulate a drive towards better productivity.

IT enablement can also enormously benefit farmers who grow cash crops by providing forecasted information
on future prices of commodities. This will prevent the tendency of farmers to jump into a decision on the basis
of ruling price levels and later on discover that the prices have crashed when they are ready to sell their
produce at the end of the season. Information on likely future prices of commodities can avert this disaster to
a large extent.

Role of ICT in Decision Support Systems:

Some of the roles that ICT can play in decision support systems are given
below:
       
Stages in Goal (based on Contribution of Examples of ICT
agricultural innovation ICTs to achieving interventions
research process systems) (innovation supporting greater
systems goal) collaboration,
communication and
knowledge sharing
with stakeholders

       
a. Identifying Chosen research to ICTs can provide On the
research priorities reflect ideas, mechanisms for
needs, priorities or allowing a wide forums and
stakeholders and range of
situations on the stakeholders to platforms can allow
ground provide opinion
and knowledge to for a wider
support this
process consultation process

Online

collaboration tools

can allow discussions

with.....

Online tools

such as CGMAP-can

store relevant

information and

allow it o be

searchable

Book on

CGIAR research

prioritization

methods and

experiences

Many

methods for making

things explicit......
        
b. Planning and Research is ICTs can provide Many web
designing research designed with mechanisms for
inputs from allowing a wide 2.0 tools which can
stakeholders range of
stakeholders to share information
provide opinion
and knowledge to and allow for online
support this
process collaboration in

discussing ideas as

well as developing

documents

Story

telling

Social

network analysis
       
c. Undertaking Research is ICTs can provide Data
research (data undertaken with mechanisms to
collection, analysis contribution from allow more storage
etc.) stakeholders stakeholders to be
involved in Learning
research activities
alliances
       
d. Producing Products are ICTs can provide Online tools
products from developed with options for getting
research result contribution of feedback and which allow
various knowledge collaboration on
sources and product collaboration in
keeping in mind development from
various target a wide range of developing products
groups stakeholders
Spatial

information and

analysis tools
       
e. Dissemination of Dissemination is ICTs offer more Mobile
research products done in ways that avenues for sharing
and messages appropriately of knowledge with phones
target variety of stakeholders of
stakeholders different types and Radio
with different
situations Web 2.0

tools-websites,

blogs, other social

media

Face-to-

face knowledge

sharing activities

Printed

products
       
f. Monitoring and Research process ICTs provide ways Participator
 evaluation includes to involve people y M&E methods (e.g.
mechanisms for in setting goals and
learning for outcomes for impact pathway,
learning and projects and
contributing to involving them in outcomes mapping
direction and the M&E activities.
analysis of ICTs can create etc.)
products: outcomes opportunities for
are decided based wider learning Online
on multiple views from projects
surveys
 

Some successful ICT applications in Indian agriculture are as follows:

exporters of agricultural commodities has conceived e-choupal has launched in June 2000 as a more efficient

supply chain aimed at delivering value to its customers around the world on a sustainable basis. ITC's e-

choupal is a unique example of using ITC's for agricultural development; e-choupal has already become the

largest initiative among all internet based interventions in rural India. e-Choupal link rural farmers directly for

the procurement of agricultural / aquaculture produce like soya, coffee, prawns etc. eliminating the role of

the middleman. The principle of the e-Choupals is to inform, empower and compete. There are 6,500

eChoupals today. ITC Limited is adding 7 new e-Choupals a day and plans to scale up to 20,000 eChoupals by

2012 covering 100,000 villages in 15 states, servicing 15 million farmers.

 aAQUA.org:  aAQUA-which stands for almost All Questions Answered is a farmer-expert Q&A

database supporting Indian languages. It is an online multilingual, multimedia agricultural portal for

disseminating information from and to the grassroots of the Indian agricultural community. The technology for

Almost All Questions Answered (aAQUA) was developed by Developmental Informatics Lab, KReSIT, IIT B and

was sponsored by Media Lab Asia and Development Gateway Foundation's R&D Center. aAQUA simultaneously

addresses two major challenges in farmer outreach programs viz  geographic reach and customized delivery. It

answers farmers queries based on the location, season, crop and other information provided by farmers. An

aAqua question is posted either by a registered user directly or through a telecenter/kiosk operator who has

an account in aAqua. Usually the question is from a farmer whose profile information provides details such as

crop, farm size, pesticides and fertilizers used, dosage etc. The prices of various commodities along with their

varieties are displayed spatially over a map. The user can decide where to sell his produce to get the

maximum profit, depending on the prices and the distance of the markets.
 

aAQUA makes use of novel database systems and information retrieval techniques like intelligent caching,
offline access with intermittent synchronization, semantic-based search, etc. Agricultural content repositories
(Digital Library), Agri-price information (Bhav Puchiye), farmer schemes and various operations- support
databases (aAQUA-Q&S) have also emerged from the experience of aAQUA deployments. aAQUA's large scale
deployment provides avenues for researchers to contribute in the areas of knowledge management, cross-
 lingual information retrieval, and providing accessible content for rural populations. Apart from agriculture,
aAQUA can be configured and customized for Expert advice over mobile networks and the internet in
education, healthcare and other domains of interest to a developing population. aAQUA is being spread
geographically by building strategic partnerships with the state governments, kiosk network providers and
Agricultural expert organizations. Additional services being considered for aAQUA as part of the scaling up
effort include (i) weather reports (ii) database of populous villages and their location information, (iii) quality
standards for exports. Apart from Agriculture, aAQUA, Bhav Puchiye and the Digital Library can be configured
and customized for expert advice and content in education, healthcare, e-Governance esp. by organizations
who are working in connecting laymen with experts.

 Warana Wired Village: In the Warana Wired Village Project covering 70 villages in Maharashtra the

existing cooperative structure has been used with state of the art infrastructure to allow Internet access to

existing cooperative societies.  The aim is to provide information to villagers by establishing networked booths

in the villages. The villages in this sugarcane-growing region have computers that are linked to a central

network that provides farmers access to essential pieces of information such as the ideal time for planting and

harvesting sugarcane, the current market rates of their produce, and payments made by the factories. The

Central and State governments together funded 90 per cent of the project
 

The computer network has put an end to a major reason for anxiety at harvest time. Any delay in harvesting
reduces its sugar content and, consequently, weight. Farmers are paid according to the crop's weight. The
computer network provides each farmer with a share code. By punching the code into the system, the farmer
gets details such as when the crop was planted and when it is due for harvesting. This gives the farmer
sufficient time to organise workers to cut and transport the sugarcane.

The network also gives details of farmer's transactions with the local sugar and milk cooperatives and helps
them compare sugarcane prices in different parts of the country. The computer kiosk has made several tasks
easy and less tedious for the sugarcane farmers. For instance, after sugarcane was weighed at the factory it
took four days for farmers to know how much money they would get. Now, within two hours of the crop
reaching the factory, farmers know how much they will be paid. The computers at the sugar factory's
weighbridge feed the crop's weight into the farmer's file through his share code. A receipt is issued to the
farmer or the transporter. The farmer can check his payment status at the computer booth.

The booths are located at the milk collection centres in the villages. The sugar factory pays Rs.150 every
month for the use of the 12 foot x12 foot room that houses the computer. The service is free for farmers.
Whenever farmers send sugarcane to the factory they go to the computer booth once in two days to check the
prices and the details of his transactions with the cooperative. Farmers trust the system and know they cannot
get cheated.

High-speed VSATs (very small aperture terminals) connected to the National Informatics Centre (NIC) in Pune
and an electronic telephone exchange form the basic technology frame of the wired village project. The VSATs
provide Internet access and the electronic telephone exchange provides dial-up facilities to the central hub
located at the office of the Warana sugar cooperative. For the network the NIC has developed a software
package based on an accounting programme. The programme supports the local language which is essential for
the project.

 Infosys' ICT initiatives for empowering Indian farmers: Infosys Technologies has partnered with

ACDI/VOCA, a non-profit international development organization that promotes broad-based economic growth,

to develop an ICT-enabled application that would improve efficiencies in the agro supply chain in India. The

solution successfully minimizes inventory requirements, reduces waste and allows retailers and farmers to be

better integrated. This application falls under ACDI/VOCA's Growth-Oriented Microenterprise Development
 Program (GMED), which is a $6.3 million, USAID-funded initiative. GMED is an innovative program that develops

sustainable and scalable approaches to job creation by fostering the growth of micro and small enterprises.

Maintaining on-time, programmed delivery of fresh produce from a large and scattered production base is a

complex and critical operation. This solution gives the organized retail sector access to a reliable small holder

production base. It thereby decreases farm-to-market losses, currently estimated at 30% to 40% on certain

products."
 

             The application tackles supply chain management from profiling of farmer clusters to crop planning,
scheduling, tracking and forecasting. The application allows farmers to access technical information including
database searches for data and images, access to region-specific weather updates and market information,
i.e., daily sales volumes and average prices. The application can handle several thousand concurrent users and
yet ensures that data is secure through data-encryption mechanisms. There are 1,700 small holder farmers
currently integrated into organized retail supply chains through this application, thereby bridging the urban-
rural agricultural divide. Over the next five to eight years, the usage is expected to increase to a million
farmers. The system is accessible across GPRS and CDMA devices, thereby increasing the effectiveness of the
field force. It ensures that there is no loss of data if connectivity or power is lost. The application also gives
farmers real-time access to agricultural experts, thereby improving farming technology at an overall level.
This technology intervention in the agricultural sector in India will reduce rural poverty in the long run.

Infosys has built the solution consisting of wireless software applications that are accessible on handheld
devices, enabling agents to address information gaps constraining vegetable and fruit farmers and enabling
other supply chain participants to monitor and control the back-end and front-end supply chain functions. The
application also enables wholesaler/retailer or other intermediaries to optimize cost by allowing large
procurement, efficient transportation management and enabling intelligent crop production management. The
solution is built on Infosys TruSync, a context-aware, client-server solution that is designed for situations with
limited or no network availability and allows for peer-to-peer (p2p) synchronization between field agents
without connecting to a central server.

 Metrological Information by Ingen Technologies: Many farmers in Punjab and West Bengal are

receiving messages on their cell phones about weather information specific to towns and districts and by 2009

these could be availed by farmers throughout India. Offered by a Kanpur-based company Ingen Technologies,

the service updates farmers on temperature, humidity and rainfall with additional parameters such as

atmospheric pressure, solar radiation, wind speed and soil moisture. The system is approved and certified by

the Indian Meteorological Department.  The company is also offering its services to a major soft drink

company, which can better predict demand for its beverages based on these predictions and analytics

software. For farmers Ingen provides agro-advisory services that include advice on sowing times, disease

outbreaks and frost forecast, through SMS. On other hand, Ingen has designed a decision support tool for utility

companies and FMCGs, and have already supplied to some and are in talks with some other players.

 Honey-Bee knowledge network: ICT can help empower the knowledge rich but economically poor

people. Under the "Honey-Bee" knowledge network (of the IIM, Ahmedabad) implemented with the support

from InfoDev division of World Bank the purpose is to augment grassroots inventors and overcome language,

literacy and localism. The project has mobilized those creative and innovative farmers, artisans, mechanics,

fishermen and women and labourers who have solved the problems through their own genius without any
 outside help, whether from state, market, or even NGOs. Such self triggered and developed innovations

whether technological or institutional are scouted, supported, sustained and scaled up wherever possible with

or without value addition, or linkage with formal science and technology institutions. Idea is to generate

incentives and benefits for the innovators and traditional knowledge holders. The objective of this entire

exercise was to create a clearing house, so that potential investors, venture capital or angle investors &

entrepreneurs can link up with grassroots innovators, thus facilitating a golden triangle of innovation,

investment & enterprise and thus build a bridge between formal & informal science.

 ikisan Portal: The Nagarjuna Fertilisers Company Limited (NFCL) is an agribusiness based at Andhra

Pradesh. They are disseminating various farming information to the farmers at various places through ICT

centers. Ikisan is a comprehensive agri portal addressing the information, knowledge and business

requirements of various players in the agri arena such as farmers, trade channel partners and agri input

/output companies. ikisan provides online, detailed content on - crops, crop management techniques,

fertilisers and pesticides and a host of other agriculture related material. ikisan enable farmers to network

with other farmers, suppliers and consumers across the world.

Conclusion:
The Vision 2020 document of the Department of Agriculture and Co-operation envisages that "the tools of ICT
will provide networking of Agriculture Sector not only in the country but also globally and the Centre and State
Government Departments will have reservoir of databases" and also "bring farmers, researchers, scientists and
administrators together". The State's role in achieving ICT revolution becomes crucial if we examine the
prospect of a sharply widening digital divide within the economy. Even beginning to provide access to the new
technology to the overwhelming majority who cannot access it for technological reasons would impose a large
financial burden. But the more difficult task is to prepare the disconnected to develop the competence to
participate, however marginally, in the emerging digital economy. With literacy and schooling achievements
still at indefensibly low levels, the first task of the government would be to rapidly advance the pathetic reach
of literacy and school education in the country. In terms of priority this should be placed above the target of
providing a minimum degree of access to ICT those who are completely disconnected. The application of ICT
solutions for the development of rural India and other developing countries will surely open up a vast range of
possibilities. Giving an opportunity to the vast majority of the population living in rural areas, to cross the
digital divide to obtain access to information resources and services provided by ICT is the next revolution
waiting to happen. Although this is a development issue, it is just not the government, non-government
organizations or the rural masses that have a role to play. Private profit-making institutions can develop
solutions to capture the hitherto unrecognized markets, make profits and at the same time aid the rural
societies. The new technologies being developed can help surmount barriers present in providing information
resources at a low cost and make applications feasible and profitable.

References:

1. Nagasri, K. (2000). Assess of creative potential and practice of extension personnel. PhD Thesis

(Unpublished) IARI Pusa, New Delhi.

2. Global e-governance readiness report. (2005). Retrieved 11th July

2009,  http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/un/unpan021888.pdf