Govt to Launch Agri Specific Mobile App for Farmers

Government will be soon introducing interactive voice response systems together with various other methodologies of integrating buyer-seller platforms through mobile applications to make mobile telephony the most potent and omnipresent tool for agriculture governance, administration and development, a senior official in the Agriculture Ministry.

''A large, stupendous scope of work is on the anvil to reach out to the farmer and to change his life,'' Raghav Chandra, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture said at an ASSOCHAM event. Increasingly there is the realization that use of information technology has to become more pervasive and that is perhaps the only way we can achieve the next green revolution, Mr Chandra said. ''That is why a national e-governance plan has been carved out also in the field of agriculture, this includes the use of internet, touch screen kiosks, agri-clinics, private kiosks, mass media, common service centres, kisan call centres, integrated platforms and others along with physical outreach of extensional personnel equipped with projectors,'' he said.

Ensuring food security, ensuring sustainability which includes environmental factors and others and ensuring a fair return/income to the farmer are three key challenges being faced by the country in the agriculture sector, Mr Chandra added. ''The government is aggressively involved in dealing with these issues and therefore matching demand and supply, ensuring that there is no unreasonable over-exploitation of natural resources and ensuring viability of agricultural production are some of the key challenges before us which are being tackled and taken up on a very serious note,'' he further said.

Talking about the significance of agriculture in India, the top government official said that 13.7 per cent of Indias gross domestic product (GDP) is contributed to by agriculture and 56 per cent of Indias population is directly connected with agriculture.

Source : Agriculture Ministry