INDUSTRY

In India, much before the new government’s thrust on the agriculture sector, an agri-informatics initiative was taken by none other than the farmers themselves, who are the ultimate beneficiaries. Claimed to be the country’s first rural information center, ‘Tejas Samadhana Kendra’ or General Resources and Information Dissemination (GRID) center, designed and developed by the Indian Farmers and Industries Alliance (IFIA) and Federation of Farmers Association (FFA), is opening its first online center on July 13, 2004, at Gummadidala village in Medak district in Andhra Pradesh. GRID is an information kiosk with a data bank, coordinating with government agencies and consultancies for those who are seeking advice, besides giving feedback and training for the benefit of farmers through a wired network in association with local self-help groups. As part of the project, IFIA, a joint venture between Federation of Farmers Associations and Confederation of Indian Industry and FFA, has collaborated with the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT) for pest management, and with the Directorate of Marketing and the National Informatic Center (NIC) for partnership services. The other partner institutions include the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), agri-universities, Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), Khadi and Village Industries Board (KVIB), private agri-input companies, government departments, banks, insurance companies, etc. A pilot project relating to pest manangement has been initiated for four crops - groundnut, cotton, paddy and sugarcane. The preliminary results from the project have already been recorded and the process of translating the data into the vernacular version with embedding of voice processes are being worked out, Mr P Chengal Reddy, chairman of IFIA told The Financial Express. “In the first phase, we want to look into the most critical issue in agriculture ie. pest management,” stressed Mr Reddy. This is one of the major issue resulting in huge crop losses besides debt and suicidal activities. IICT has already developed a software for pest management containing data to understand the nature of pests affecting different crops. The second critical factor is the pricing mechanism and hence we are working with the Directorate of Marketing to work out support prices for the farmers, Mr Reddy added. GRID will have a detailed list of various rural development schemes for transparent feedback procedures and implementation indicators. Information is listed on the GRID flow map through relevant sources. All updated information will be collected, collated and packaged by GRID, which in turn, will be fed to the district GRID centres. Further, GRID will provide advice to individual farmers on a day-to-day basis through telephone, fax and internet. It will even air fortnight forecasts on weather, crop activities and management techniques with the market trend of farm produce and other operational schemes.