Digital Agriculture: Govt signs MOUs with 5 private companies

New Delhi: The modernization of the agriculture sector will continue by infusing new technologies so that farmers can increase their income. This was stated by the Union Agriculture Minister, Narendra Singh Tomar at the MOU signing ceremony at Krishi Bhavan on 14th September, 2021.

The MOUs were signed for pilot projects with CISCO, Ninjacart, Jio Platforms Limited, ITC Limited and NCDEX e-Markets Limited (NeML).

“Based on these pilot projects farmers will be able to take informed decisions on what crop to grow, what variety of seed to use and what best practices to adopt to maximize the yield. The agriculture supply chain players can plan their procurement and logistics on precise and timely information. Farmers can take informed decisions about whether to sell or store their produce and when and where and what price to sell,” said the Minister.

Click here to see Short Note on all 05 MOU Partners.

A digital agriculture mission has been initiated for 2021 -2025 by government for projects based on new technologies like artificial intelligence, block chain, remote sensing and GIS technology, use of drones and robots etc.

Recognizing the importance of Digitization in Agriculture the Department is creating a federated Farmers Database and building different Services around this Database so as to built Digital Ecosystems of Agriculture. Federated farmers’ database will be linked by the land records of farmers from across the country and unique Farmer ID will be created. Under this unified database for all farmers the information of all benefits and supports of various schemes of Central & State Government can be kept and this can be the source for accessing information for providing benefits to farmers in the future. So far, the database is ready with details of around 5.5 crore farmers.

“Any attempt to transform agriculture sector needs to imbibe an ecosystem thinking and a digital ecosystem. The agriculture value chain extends from crop selection to crop management and the market; it involves public and private players in agricultural inputs and services and also logistics. Establishing a digital ecosystem of agriculture needs to take a long-term view of aspects like interoperability, data governance, data quality, data standards, security and privacy, besides promoting innovation. A significant requirement is adoption of a decentralized, federated architecture that assures autonomy to the service providers and all other actors and ensures interoperability at the same time,” said Mr Tomar.

Other dignitaries present on the occasion included Kailash Chaudhary, Union Minister of State for Agriculture, Shobha Karandlaje, Union Minister of State for Agriculture, Sanjay Aggarwal Secretary, DA&FW,  Vivek Aggarwal, Additional Secretary (Digital Agriculture), Harish Krishnan (Managing Director, Public Affairs & Strategic Engagements) CISCO, Thirukumaran Nagarajan (Co Founder and CEO Ninjacart) Ninjacart, Dr. Shanker Adawal (President and Head of Regulatory & Corporate Affiars, JIO) Jio Platforms Limited, Rajnikant Rai, (Divisional Chief Executive of ITC) ITC Limited and Mrugank Paranjape, (Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer) NCDEX e-Markets Limited.