Govt to Provide Demand Based Tele Agriculture Advisories to Indian Farmers

The IIDS platform gives an option to farmers to receive individual needs-based information for only those services to which they have subscribed.

In order to facilitate farmers by providing location specific ‘Demand Based Tele Agriculture Advisories’, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, and Digital India Corporation (DIC), Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology signed an MoU on June 9, 2021 at Krishi Bhawan, New Delhi.

The objective of the MoU is to integrate the existing Interactive Information Dissemination System (IIDS) platform of DIC with the proposed Kisan Sarathi program of ICAR and its implementation through ICAR network to reach a large number of farmers across the country.

ICAR and DIC have agreed to collaborate to develop and deploy ICT platforms to establish and operate a multi-media, multi-way advisory and communication system for supporting various agricultural activities at local level. To start with, the IIDS platform will be deployed at ICAR which is a push-and-pull-based system wherein agriculture-related information can be pulled from the farmers using mobile phones. 

The IIDS platform gives an option to farmers to receive individual needs-based information for only those services to which they have subscribed. The experts at the back end will have access to the farmers’ database while responding to their queries. 

In this manner, experts would be able to understand the problems raised by farmers or field problems in a better way (KYF – Know Your Farmer) and expeditiously provide appropriate solutions to the farmer in a personalized manner. Currently, the IIDS platform has been deployed in North Eastern states, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana which would be extended to all over the country with this MoU with ICAR.

Rural Resistance: Farm Laws and Protests by Farmers Raman Media Network (RMN) Company – which is working in diversified content creation, management, and distribution businesses on a global scale – has launched “Rural Resistance: Protests by Farmers” editorial section. This section under the RMN news service has been created to cover the agricultural reforms, farm laws, and the ongoing farmers’ protests in India. It carries news, views, and related developments and invites farmers as well as farming experts to share their views which will be published on the site. You can click here to visit the section.

The DIC will be providing the entire technical solution with support for development, hosting and managing the requisite ICT platform. The ICAR will be managing and monitoring the entire operations through their extension services network in the form of Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs), various domain specific research institutes, and network of agricultural universities in a phased manner.