Farm Productivity Through Information Flow

India’s farm dependent economy has been trying hard to increase productivity for a long time in an attempt to ensure food security to its huge population. However, farm productivity has more or less stagnated after witnessing green revolution in sixties. But after four decades, the country now requires a second green revolution by emulating certain techniques used in 1960’s and also by augmenting it with ICT. The article deals with reasons for low productivity and how technology can be used to increase productivity.

Reasons for low Agricultural productivity

1. Small land holding size

2. Dependency on erratic monsoon

3. Poor Techniques of Production

4. Inadequate Irrigation Facilities

5. Pressure of Population on Land

6. Lack of Credit and Marketing Facilities

7. Land Tenure System

8. Soil Erosion

9. Fertilizer and Biocides

10. Human Factors

a. No ownership
b. Poverty
c. No insurance facility for crop loss

Farmers will have to be empowered through ICT so that each and every aspect of training is made available at their door steps for initiating an informed decision.

An integrated approach to bring farming related information, benefitting farmers, is visible with government’s keen focus on soil health cards scheme, monsoon advisories and development of a satellite based insurance model.

Technological interventions by government to increase productivity:

Pradhan Mantra Fasal Bima Yojana will have a uniform premium of only 2% to be paid by farmers for all Kharif crops and 1.5% for all Rabi crops. In case of annual commercial and horticultural crops, the premium to be paid by farmers will be only 5%. For the first time, emphasis has been accorded to satellites technology to facilitate accurate assessment and speedy settlement of claims.
Indian farmers are also receiving customized weather based advisories on mobile. Farm ministry runs dedicated weather information based services at various stage of farming. Farmers awareness programme are run on regular basis through multi-media platforms, most popular being state run radios dedicated programmes on farming in local languages.

To bring stability in price mechanism, an attempt is being made to  elctronically integrate nearly 250 wholesale markets in the country by Sep 2016. This will offer a common market place by providing a platform for real time prices at a national level for all stakeholders involved in the agricultural supply chain.

The central government has urged states to introduce the e market platform within their territories, so that farmers can sell harvest in any of the connected markets.

The centre has also set aside 1.75 billion rupees for providing software needed for market integration project with each market receiving 3 million rupees.

A “one stop shop” for all farmers to access information on agricultural activities- The portal provides information about package of practices, crop, seed varieties, common pests etc. This portal can be accessed from any part of the country free of cost by the farmers.

Two mobile apps- Crop Insurance and AgriMarketMobile were launched to promote use of information technologies for benefit of farmers. Crop insurance helps farmers find out details about insurance cover available in their area. This helps to calculate insurance premium for notified crops, coverage amount, and loan amount. AgriMarketMobile can be used by farmers to get market prices of crops in whole sale markets within 50 km radius of the device.

Through initiated technological interventions, farmers have been empowered to take informed decisions on various choices on the basis of real time prices so as to trace out in which market they should sell their produce. All these technology based efforts are aimed to provide cushion to farmers against any chance of distress sale in absence of transparent market information.

By: Mona Kaushal