The Group of Technopark Companies (GTech) organised a one day conference on ‘Re-Engineering the Kerala Agriculture Sector: Information and Communication Technologies in Agriculture’ at Technopark, Thiruvananthapuram.
The conference was held in partnership with NABARD, Kerala State IT Mission, Technopark and Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management in Kerala.
The conference had three sessions dedicated to the use of ICT’s in Agriculture Marketing, Production and Extensions Services and examined several ongoing projects that aim to provide IT based Services to specific sectors. The Conference discussed the core issues of the Agriculture Sector and how ICT’s could be employed in addressing these challenges.
In his inaugural address Sri. Mullakkara Retnakaran, Hon. Minister for Agriculture, government of Kerala, said IT should be made farmer friendly and should empower farmers.
In his special address, Dr. Ajay Kumar IAS, Principal Secretary IT, Government of Kerala said one of the areas where IT can be beneficially applied is agriculture but the challenge remains that the lowest IT implementation is in agriculture. He highlighted the two initiatives of the Kerala government – Kissan Kerala and the eKrishi project in Malappuram. Database of all the farmers in 4-5 districts has been done and will be rolled out soon in other districts. Government has sanctioned the Agrinet project for Kerala. Kerala has achieved 100% connectivity but computer penetration remains extremely low in rural areas. Mobile has to take over e-literacy.
Mr. K C Shashidhar, Chief General Manager, Kerala Regional Office, NABARD said NABARD would fund a project to consolidate ICT initiatives for the agriculture sector. He asked IT companies to handhold ICT initiatives and at the same time farmers should have interaction with corporate sector. He wants ICT to reach financial services to farmers, projects on financial inclusion, networking of ICT innovators in Kerala. Mr. Shashidhar said that IT companies should add agriculture as a business domain to develop new solutions to bridge the knowledge gaps in the farm-level. For example, a farm credit platform could be worked out, which would be of inclusive nature.
Rajeev Srinivasan, Professor, Corporate Strategy, IIM Bangalore said India can be world’s food superpower by proper implementation of ICT in agriculture as food security can be a huge problem.
In his welcome address Mervin Alexander, CEO, Technopark said ICT can play a critical role in Agriculture and we should start using more IT in this area. Agriculture will be able to attract talented professionals if ICT is implemented.
Dr. Satichananda Sagola, CEO of Global Risk Hub, spoke about the need for establishing a digital rural information infrastructure services.
Satish Babu, Secretary, GTech & President, InApp Information Technologies announced that GTech would organise this event annually focussing on Innovations and latest technologies in Agriculture.
A request was placed before GTech to launch a Rural Connect Programme in partnership with NBARD to share the technology trends and marketing strategies with the farming Community in Kerala. GTech in a press release suggested that the request would be taken up positively after working out the modalities.
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