“Digital Agriculture Mission to Digitalize the Farmer”, says Manoj Ahuja

At the release ceremony of the FICCI compendium on "Enhancing Farmers' Income," Manoj Ahuja, Secretary, Union Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, said that contextual and accurate information to anybody involved in agriculture has the potential to unleash a lot of value.

Ahuja made a reference to the Digital Agriculture Mission in this regard, which aims to effectively digitalize the farmer in terms of identity, linking up the farmer's land and crops and geo-referencing them. These are some of the fundamental components that we're attempting to include in the agristack, he said. He continued, "We have made some progress; maybe, next year, we should show substantial results.”

“I can understand the advantages that contextualized information can provide for the many participants in the agricultural ecosystem”, Ahuja added.

Speaking on the topic of supporting agricultural entrepreneurs that are developing cutting-edge technologies and solutions to increase farm incomes Samuel Praveen Kumar, Joint Secretary, Union Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare mentioned the three C's—convergence, capacity building, and collectives such (FPOs and cooperatives)—as the essential components in this regard.

Elaborating on convergence, Kumar said, "if the government can package the schemes in such a manner that you give more benefits, in a unified manner to the businesses or startups, I think they will be able to sustain their business." Moving on to the capacity building, he noted, "when we talk about capacity building for farmers or extension workers, it's not like that. It is for everybody in the ecosystem."  Kumar also made a passing mention of creating crops that can withstand changing climates, using technology to reduce carbon footprints, and creating infrastructure.

S. Kesavan, Chairman, FICCI National Agriculture Committee & Group President, TAFE, spoke on the compendium and underlined the necessity of documenting the best practices and disseminating them to the public so that, "people can touch, feel, do and understand the practices." He added, "small and marginal farmers are going to be one of the greatest strengths of the country. Some of the case studies in the compendium tell how they are changing."

In order to increase crop connectivity, resource use efficiency, cropping intensity, and diversification toward high-value agriculture, several organizations have implemented successful initiatives and interventions, which are presented in the FICCI compendium of guidelines.