More than 300 eminent agricultural scientists and information technology experts from all over the country participated in the workshop organized by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) for the first time to prepare a roadmap for agricultural knowledge management. Union Agriculture Minister, Radha Mohan Singh addressed the workshop.
“Despite a vast network of agricultural research and education, most of the benefits of farmer-oriented research take a long time to reach the agrarian community due to ineffective mechanisms to spread information”, felt Singh.
Singh said 58 percent population of the country still relies on agriculture for livelihood. There is a steady increase in the number of small and marginal farmers in the agrarian sector. Due to traditional farming and low productivity, they are unable to achieve higher yield despite hard work
He counted that there are more than 102 Agricultural Research Institutes, 73 Central and State Agricultural Universities and more than 690 Krishi Vigyan Kendras and the network is constantly generating useful information but somehow it fails to reach to beneficiaries
He talked of help of modern information technology to reach out to the farming community in the shortest possible time. He mentioned Farmers Portal, Kisan Call Center, Fasal Bima Portal, Rice Export App, Pusa Krishi App, Agro Collect- Krishi Gyan App, e-NAM Portal, etc. in this regard.
The two-day workshop organised by the Directorate of Knowledge Management in Agriculture, ICAR, at Pusa, New Delhi, has been divided into four sessions where Scientists and IT experts exchanged views on topics like current Status of Agricultural Knowledge Management, Data Management and Information Storage for Higher Agricultural Profits, and the Role of Media in Knowledge Management.