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Govt to make mobile telephony potent tool for agriculture, conference told
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Our Bureau, Mumbai
May 28 , 2015
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The Union government will be soon introducing interactive voice response
systems together with various other methodologies of integrating
buyer-seller platforms through mobile applications to make mobile
telephony the most potent and omnipresent tool for agriculture
governance, administration and development, a top agriculture ministry
official said at an ASSOCHAM event held in New Delhi on Tuesday.
“A
large, stupendous scope of work is on the anvil to reach out to the
farmer and to change his life,” said Raghav Chandra, additional
secretary, ministry of agriculture, while inaugurating a conference on
‘Mobile: Transforming Agricultural Value Chains Enabling e-Kranti,’
organised by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India
(ASSOCHAM).
“Increasingly there is the realisation that use of
information technology has to become more pervasive and that is perhaps
the only way we can achieve the next green revolution,” said Chandra.
“That
is why a national e-governance plan has been carved out also in the
field of agriculture, this includes the use of Internet, touch screen
kiosks, agri-clinics, private kiosks, mass media, common service
centres, kisan call centres, integrated platforms and others along with
physical outreach of extensional personnel equipped with projectors,” he
said.
“Ensuring food security, ensuring sustainability which
includes environmental factors and others and ensuring a fair
return/income to the farmer are three key challenges being faced by the
country in the agriculture sector,” added Chandra.
“The
government is aggressively involved in dealing with these issues and
therefore matching demand and supply, ensuring that there is no
unreasonable over-exploitation of natural resources and ensuring
viability of agricultural production are some of the key challenges
before us which are being tackled and taken up on a very serious note,”
Chandra said.
Talking about the significance of agriculture in
India, the top government official said that 13.7 per cent of India’s
gross domestic product (GDP) is contributed to by agriculture and 56 per
cent of India’s population is directly connected with agriculture.
“India
is about 17 per cent of world's population i.e. about 8-9 per cent of
world’s population is connected with Indian agriculture,” said Chandra.
He
also said that the government was hopeful of achieving a higher rate of
agriculture growth in the 12th Plan. “In the 9th Plan we had a rate of
growth of 2.5 per cent, in the 10th Plan of 2.4 per cent which has grown
to 4.1 per cent in the 11th Plan and we are hopeful that we will be
able to achieve similar figures in the 12th Plan.”
Chandra
stated that total volume of food grains being produced in the country
have been constantly rising as it reached about 275 million tonne (mt),
milk production is a little more than the value of food grains and
horticulture is again stupendous figure of 285 mt and exports are
constantly rising and today they stand at about $45 billion.
“Introduction
of simple mobile services designed to help small-scale farmers in
emerging markets could boost farm gate incomes of seven crore Indian
farmers by over Rs 56,000 crore by 2020,” noted a Vodafone report titled
‘Connected Farming in India,’ launched at the conference.
“Average
farming household lives on less than Rs 250 per day with many farmers
struggling to feed and educate their families,” noted the report.
“Simple
mobile services could enhance earnings of almost two-thirds of such
farmers by an average of Rs 8,000 per year thereby creating a positive
impact in communities,” it added.
Amid others who addressed the
conference included – Serpil Timuray, regional CEO, Africa, Middle-East
and Asia-Pacific, Vodafone; Sunil Sood, CEO, Vodafone India; Avinash
Vashistha, chairman & country managing director, Accenture India;
and Karan A Chanana, chairman & CEO, Amira Pure Foods (India) Ltd.
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