TAD NewsDesk, Karnataka: The state of Karnataka will follow a system which will enable the farmers to receive personalized advisories on crops to increase their yield.
Authorities are using a database which contains the data of land, crop and soil of every farmer. With the help of that they are going to build up on this guidance system. This data will be mixed with village-wise weather details to provide advisories that are relevant to farmers and the crops they are growing.
Karnataka has 72.46 lakh farmers registered on the flagship Farmer Registration & Unified Beneficiary Information System (FRUITS) portal, which makes customisation of crop advisories possible. Every farmer is given a FRUITS ID comprising Aadhaar, caste, land records and mobile number.
Rajeev Chawla,Additional Chief Secretary (e-Governance) said,
“We know what each farmer grows, thanks to the crop survey. Then, we have soil health details — red soil, black soil, alluvial soil and so on. Plus, we have weather information for every village depending on the agro-climatic zone. Using all this, the advisory can be given crop-wise, land-wise and agro-climatic zone-wise,”
Mr Chawla emphasized that currently the company is being “generic” in its approach.
He added,
“We know the approximate sowing and harvest date of the crops,” Chawla said. “The advisory can be pushed to categories of farmers. For example, those growing pomegranate on black cotton soil in Vijayapura will get an advisory that is relevant to them.”
The personalized system will be made functioning very soon. As soon as the approval is granted the program will roll out.
Agriculture Commissioner Brijesh Kumar Dikshit said,
“There’s nothing better than this. If a person is growing maize, he’ll get what he should know.”
However, farmers leader K S Nandini Jayaram has expressed her doubts saying that this will ruin the crop diversity of the place.
She said,
“This is a hidden agenda for mono-cropping and an attempt at specialised farming, making marketing easy for corporates. All that we farmers want, instead, is a secure market.”
Source: Deccan Herald
