INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY (ICT) INITIATIVES IN INDIAN AGRICULTURE

8/12/2019 INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY (ICT) INITIATIVES IN INDIAN AGRICULTURE

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A REVIEW OF LITERATURE STUDY ON INFORMATION AND

COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY INITIATIVES IN INDIAN

AGRICULTURE

Submitted to

(As part of partial fulfillment of M. Sc. (ICT-ARD) Program, Session 2009- 2011)

Worked at

IITMS Rural Technology and Business Incubator (RTBI), Madras


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Sl. No. CONTENTS PAGE No.

Acknowledgement 5

Executive Summary 6

1 Introduction 8

2 Objectives 83 Research Methodology 8

4 Results and Discussion 9

4.1 Understanding the status of existing ICT efforts in the Indian

agriculture

9

4.1.1 Mobile Phone/Telephone 12(a) mKRISHI 12

(b) Kisan Call Centres 15

4.1.2 SMS based 16

(a) Reuters Market Light 16

(b) N ki Lif T l 18


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(b) Interactive Multimedia Compact Disc (IMCD) 34

4.1.10 Online Video Channel 35Kissan Information Dissemination and Networking, Kerala

(KISSAN-KERALA)

35

4.1.11 Print Media 37

Agriwatch 37

4.1.12 Phone based Information Portal 39VoiKiosk 39

4.1.13 Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) 41

i-Shakti 41

4.2 Agricultural Advisory Information Systems 42

4.3 ICT based training for farmers 43

4.3.1 Multimedia based ICT Training for Farmers 43

4.3.2 Web based ICT Training for Farmers 45

4.3.3 Multi ICT based Training for Farmers 46

4.3.4 Radio Dial-up and Broadcast based ICT Training for Farmers 46

4 4 Challenges in Implementing ICT based Agri advisory 46


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LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE NO. NAME OF FIGURES PAGE NO.

1 Number of ICT projects implemented by various

states in India

9

2 Number of ICT tools/media used for information

delivery system

10

3 Number of ICT projects by various organizations 10

4 Number of ICT projects launched in various time

periods

11

5 Types of services by ICT projects 11

6 Types of services by government (a) as well as private(b) based ICT organizations

12

7 Number of ICT projects providing various kinds of

information

42


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Acknowledgement

I would like to thank all RTBI team for their kind support who made this winter

internship project report possible:-

Dr. Ashok Junjhunwala, Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT,

Madras, for giving me a great opportunity to work with RTBI as an intern. Hiskind help and support throughout the project made me a complete

understanding of ICTs initiatives for Indian agriculture. His valuable

guidance, suggestions and comments helped me in effective making of this

project report.

Ms. Suma Prashant for regularly evaluating my progress work and guided mein effective making of project report. She always helped me when I faced

difficulties.

Dr. M. Ganesan who helped me at each moment of four months internship

period and he instructed, taught and guided me at each and every stage of the

j t H l l d i d f l ti ft di d


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Executive Summary

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) play a vital role in

communicating scientific and sustainable farming practices to the farming community

in time. In order to analyze and synthesize the research findings on the impact of ICT

on the farmers, it was determined to collect and review the literature on the existing

published results from various sources. The literature review has been designed withthe following objectives; to understand the existing ICT efforts in the Indian

agriculture scenario; to analyze agricultural advisory information such as cultivation

practices/marketing/Government programmes/inputs availability/ others etc; to

identify ICT based training for farmers; to review the challenges in implementing ICT

initiatives; to analyze issues related to sustainability of ICT efforts in agriculture.Each objective was thoroughly discussed from the result of the paper published.

The literature review process was targeted particularly on the impact of ICTs in

Indian agriculture. The researcher have collected around 334 papers of which

b t150 l t d d i d i d th it bl h ti l d


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Punjab (11), Haryana (11), Kerala (10). These projects have come up with the effort

of private companies, government, cooperatives, academic institutions and NGOs.

With regard to agricultural information, these projects are giving following

information: weather data, market price, agri-inputs, pest and disease management,

soil testing, cultivation practices, fertilizer scheduling and recommendations, agri-

credits, e-agri-trading, crop insurance, cold storage availability, agriculture contents,

irrigation techniques, bio-fertilizers, vermi-compost, agri-news, animal husbandry,

crops tips, farm machinery, pre-and post-harvest etc. The generic information is also

giving such as microfinance, health, life insurance, education, Govt. schemes, e-

Governance etc.

Apart from agricultural advisory, farmers are also being trained by using suitable ICT

tools/media such as multimedia, web based systems and radio dial-up and broadcast.

There are various socio-technical challenged has been incurred during implementation

of the ICT project. The common challenges were frequent power cut, low bandwidth,

poor dial-up connection, poor telephone connectivity, illiteracy and hesitation of


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1. Introduction

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) play a vital role in

communicating scientific and sustainable farming practices to the farming community

in time. In order to analyze and synthesize the research findings on the impactof ICT

on the farmers, it was determined to collect and review the literature on the existing

published results from various sources. The findings of review of literature study

would help the ICT innovators and scientific communities to tailor cost effective

technologies according to the local environment and need of the farmers. Hence the

present study has been designed with the following objectives:-

2. Objectives

To understand the status of existing ICT efforts in the Indian agriculture

To analyze agricultural advisory information

To identify ICT based training for farmers

T i th h ll i i l ti ICT i iti ti


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4. Results and Discussion

4.1. Understanding the Status of Exi sting ICT Ef for ts in the I ndian Agricultur e

From the present review of literature study it was found that there were 64 ICT

initiatives being implemented in India between 1998 and 2010.

The mentioned ICT tools/media in Figure 2 are mainly focused on information

disseminating related to agricultural practices including market price, crop production

and weather data. Interestingly, it was observed that most of the ICT projects are

being implemented in Tamil Nadu followed by Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and

other states as indicated in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Number of ICT projects implemented by various states in India

17

14 14

12 12 11 11 1112

14

16

18

rojects

State wise ICT projects


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Figure 2: Number of ICT tools/media used for information delivery system

ICT projects have come up with the effort of Government, Private companies, NGOs,

Academic Institutions, Cooperative organizations, Public Private Partnerships (PPPs),

Private & NGO and Public, Private & Academic Institution. Government has

51

1916

11 104 3 3 2 1 1 1 1 1

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

N

o.ofICT

projects

Name of ICT tools/media

Number of various ICT tools/media


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There were various ICT projects that have been launched during successive years.

From Figure 4, it indicates that most of the ICT projects were launched in 2000followed by 2003 and 2008. The researcher found that the total of 64 ICT projects for

Indian agriculture has been implemented during the period of 1998 and 2011. Some of

the ICT project, researcher could not find the launched year of the four ICT projects

and marked as NA in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Number of ICT projects launched in various time periods

2

2

10

5

1

8 8

1

6

2

7 7

1 1

4

0

2

46

8

10

12

1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 NA

No.ofICT

projects

Year

Year wise ICT projetcs


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The main ICT initiative has been launched by Government and Private Organizations.

Under Government based ICT projects has shown that 58 percent projects give freeservices whereas Private based ICT project has shown that 89 percent projects give

paid services as figured out in Figure 6.

Figure 6: Types of services by government (a) as well as private (b) based ICTorganizations

Free

11%

Paid

89%

Services of private ICT

initiatives

Free

58%

Paid42%

Services of government ICT

initatives


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system. The mobile phone is equipped with multiple features like sensors, camera,

global positioning system (GPS), and microphones which has enabled farmers tointeract with agri-experts. The information from all the sensors gets stored in an

integrated disease analysis console which can be remotely accessed by an expert who

can advise the sender of the query on further course of action. The application has

been designed for various Indian languages and successfully made possible for the

farmers to access the information at right time.

mKRISHI has also been using an internally developed and patented Interactive Voice

Response System (IVRS) type platform called Packet Interactive Multimedia

Response (PIM2R). It uses the inexpensive data channel for transferring rich content.

Mobile Agro Advisory System shows how several stakeholders such as farmers,

government, research institutes, agro based industries and content providers can be

connected for mutual benefit. TCS partners with wireless operators to allow farmers

to download the platform on high-end phones, and TCS has set up "mini-mobile sites"

that farmers can visit to have the platform installed on low-end phones. It also

facilitates web based services for farmers. It has been reported that m-KRISHI now

b t 500 f b t TCS b li t l t 1 000 f b fit i th


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The collection of these inputs also leads to the computation of diagnosis severity and

effective decision-making by the expert.

The mobile phone sensors help farmers in capturing additional information regarding

the diseases present in the farm and microphone can be used to record the voice in

order to capture the context in which the images were captured. The GPS can record

the exact location in the field where the infection has occurred. These sensors are

helpful in rigorous analysis of the disease spread. Farmers can now receive

information on microclimate, local mandi (market) price, experts advice and other

information relevant to them like government policies, financial institutions, crop

insurance, fungicide, pesticide, seeds and cold storage availability on a mobile phone.

The mKRISHI application enable farmers to send queries, comprising of text, voice

and pictures, specific to their land and crop to agricultural experts, using their mobile

phones.

The mKRISHI ecosystem provides an integrated view of the farmersprofile, farming

history and the required farm parameters on a console at a remote location to an

expert. Voice based querying system gives freedom to the farmers to ask any query in


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pyramid market. Based on the outcome of mKRISHI project, they have planned to

scale up for various crops diseases and for different geographies in India.

(b) Kisan Call Centres (Sharma & Rao, 2005; IASP, 2011; DAC, 2010; Chanduka, 2007;

IBEF, 2004)

Kisan Call Centre (KCC) was launched all over India by the Ministry of Agriculture,

Govt. of India in 2004. The main objectives of KCC are to address the need of the

farming community making use of increased tele-density and Information

Technology, making professional help and information available to farmers at their

doorstep, on a toll free telephone number, putting the farmers directly in contact with

Agriculture Experts and making authentic field data available for Agriculture Policy

decisions by the authorities. It is on-line phone based expert advice system to all

Indian farmers by calling toll-free number 1551. Expert advice has carried out by

trained Agriculture Graduate (Level I) in the local language. If complex problem exist

then call transferred to State Agriculture University Scientist (Level II), State

Department Officials (Level III) and other responsible expert on-line.

Th i i i l i ll ki d d i 6 0 10 0 F l


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According to latest statistics, KCC gives service in 22 Indian Languages (local) from

14 locations across India. It covers all fields of Agriculture, Animal Husbandry,

Fishery etc. Agriculture information includes market information, weather

information and considers local agro-eco factors on free of cost country wide help-

line for farmers. Problems of farmers countered firstly by level I (Agriculture

Graduates as Call Centers Agents (CCAs), if not then level II (Scientists from various

Agriculture Institutes as Level II support), again not then level III (Nodal Agency for

the State/ Agriculture Directorate of the State).

4.1.2. SMS based

(a) Reuters Market Light (Arora & Cummings, 2010; Kumar, 2010; BCA, 2011; Prakash &

Velu, 2010)

Reuters Market Light (RML) was promoted by Thomson Reuters. This project was

initiated in 2006 following full fledged operations from 2007 in Maharashtra. The aim

of this project is to facilitate greater transparency in the Indian agricultural markets

allowing individual farmers to increase their productivity and maximize their revenue,

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launched in February 2009. Now farmers of Maharashtra can subscribe to RML

through 2,500 retail outlets.

RML is providing up-to-date, customized commodities pricing information, weather

updates specific to their taluka in the early morning (7:30 am), market prices from

three selected mandis and tips as well as best practices of production related to

specific crops (chosen by the farmer) in the afternoon and also relevant national and

international news in the evening. There are also partnerships with agricultural

universities and institutes in Maharashtra and Punjab for crop advisory content such

as seed varieties, plant protection and fertilizer application.

Agricultural institutes share data free of cost, and the RMLs content team agg regates,

scans, and translates it into local languages. On an average, each farmer receives four

messages each day. Farmers can subscribe to services for 3, 6, or 12 month periods at

rates that amount to just a few Indian Rupees a day or Rs. 175 for 3 months. These

subscriptions can be purchased through a network of distributors, including post

offices, banks, seed and fertilizer dealers among others. RML has also developed a


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group, oil exploration and extraction company Cairn Energy for better services. In

India alone, there are more than 250 million agricultural producers which represent an

estimated Rs. 22,450 million potential market opportunity. Although RML is still a

start-up enterprise that has yet to break even, sales of the service crossed the Rs. 44.94

million sales mark in 2009. Just a little over two years after launching the new

product, RML has reached nearly 300,000 subscribers in 12 states. The company was

planned to reach 500,000 subscribers by the end of 2010. RML has been so

successful, Thomson Reuters is eager to replicate the initiative in key African

markets. Without the support of top management, this project would not have

received the initial funding and support needed to make it a success.

(b) Nokia Li fe Tool (ICTupdate, 2010; Kumar, 2010; Nokia, 2008; Europe Nokia, 2011)

Nokia Life Tool was launched by Nokia India Private Limited in 2009 in Maharashtra

then it expanded as a commercial enterprise to provide agricultural information to

customers in 18 Indian states. The services are subscription oriented, where one pays

a monthly fee and some are chargeable on a per download/request basis. The SMS

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handsets of Nokia for these services are Nokia 2323 classic and the Nokia 2330

classic.

The main motto of this project for agriculture is to empower with tailored information

delivered in synch with the cropping cycles and to get information on weather,

agriculture tips & techniques and market prices and improve productivity and

earnings. The information is customized to their location and crops. The information

provided by the service is also relevant to the season and to the stage of crop growth.

Getting the information at the right time (on how to protect a crop, which crops to

grow in that area, how to treat the soil between crop cycles) helps farmers to make the

right decisions about what to plant and when, and to reduce losses and optimize

income. It also offers an education service, which provides English language learning,

general knowledge and exam preparation tips. There is an also entertainment service

giving news, astrological reports and sports coverage.

4.1.3 Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS)

(a) L ifeLine India(Lall & Sahi; 2009)


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The project mainly delivers critical information on mobile phone pertaining to

agriculture and animal husbandry to farmer. It is also extended to education.

Agricultural information includes insect, pest and disease management; seeds and

fertilizers; watershed management and micro-irrigation; livestock and organic farming

and available funding and Government schemes on loans and subsidies; banking and

insurance; market prices and region specific market information.

The farmer called a designated number from a mobile or landline to register his/her

agriculture-related queries using an IVRS. The farmer is then given a query ID and

prompted to call back 24 hours later for an answer. Answers to the queries are sourced

from a panel of agriculture and animal husbandry experts, or from the compilation of

earlier responses to similar queries that constitute the systems Frequently Asked

Questions (FAQs) database.

Farmers pay a nominal fee of Rs. 10/- for this service. Revenue earned from call

charges is being used to offset part of the operating expenses of the service. Farmers

can also avail LifeLines online service by visiting the nearest information kiosks. The

web interface enables the farmer to access the database online, listen to audio clips of


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(b) IF FCO Kisan Sanchar L imi ted(Narula et al., 2010; Kumar, 2010; IFFCO, 2010)

IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Limited (IKSL) is a subsidiary unit promoted by IFFCO in

2007. It is mobile phone based communication in far flung rural areas of India. They

are tied up with Bharti AirTel to build and offer a platform for the farmers through the

cooperative society network. AirTel is to prepare a unique SIM card IFFCO-AirTel

Green Card. Marketing of this product is carried out by society and they get income of

Rs. 9500 per months through Green SIM Card. The call rates within the CUG (Close

User Group) would be just 50 paisa.

Through this service, all subscribers are provided five 1-minute voice-based messages

free of cost every day. Farmer can also access a toll-free helpline service (534351) at

the cost of Re. 1 per minute where they receive farm advisory messages and practical

inputs from experts. It is voice based messaging and works wherever there is GSM

network coverage. It covers 18 states, 51 zones and involvement of 17 content

managers and 57 experts.

Since inception 95156 total messages broadcasted, solved 80845 questions on

h l li d f db k f f h b ib b


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reply to any doubts, any questions or any clarifications. The emphasis of the content

to be disseminated to farmers is that it is local specific, dynamic and demand driven

so that it would be of local relevance.

For IKSL models to be sustainable in long run, new revenue generation sources

should be explored so as to achieve the expected scale. The success of these projects

requires strong commitment of all stakeholders involved especially the societies. For

content generation, the state agricultural marketing boards, local district authorities,

extension officials need to work together in co-ordination with local agencies to serve

the farmer better.

The success of this model depends upon the information sharing by market

intermediaries, farmers and kiosk operators and if implemented successfully, thesecan bring revolution to the Indian farming system as well as improve the life of

farmers and then achieve financial viability. The company aims to make this model

financially viable by earning revenues through selling information related goods and

services. Accessibility, scalability, replicability and sustainability are strengths of

mobile based services for rural empowerment.


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hierarchical menu using isolated-word spoken commands. The announcement board is

a list of headline-like informational snippets, uploaded to AO by DSC staff or other

agriculture experts several times per week. The radio archive lets the caller listen to

archived radio programs produced by DSC on agricultural topics of current interest.

Finally, AO allows farmers to record their own questions, for review and response by

experts. These are implemented both isolated word speech and Dual-tone Multi-

frequency (DTMF) versions of AO.

Users could choose to record a question, provide an answer, or browse the existing list

of questions and answers. Users were limited to 30 seconds for each question or

answer they recorded. Broadcast announcements of general interest, including

messages about agriculture, animal husbandry, relevant government programs, market

prices and weather through announcement board.

The radio archive contained all previously broadcast programs, starting with the most

recent. Users browsed the archive by listening to 30 second summary recordings and

then choosing to listen to the full 15 minute program or continue browsing. Farmers

can record their questions using a toll-free number, which are replied to by other


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completion rate with DTMF was significantly higher than with speech (74 percent vs.

61 percent; p < 0.05). In terms of difficulty, across all tasks, the percentage of such

responses was 49 percent for speech and 30 percent for DTMF (p < 0.05). When

specifically users were asked whether they faced any difficulty in providing input to

the system, 81 percent of DTMF users answered no or definitely no, compared to

38 percent for speech users (p < 0.01).

With speech input, the task completion rate was 42 percent when one or more

recognition errors occurred, compared to 67 percent when no errors occurred

(p < 0.05). Given the recent emphasis on designing limited vocabulary speech

interfaces for semi-literate users, it is notable that the only group who performed

better using speech for multiple tasks was the most educated group. This indicates that

less educated users may have more difficulty recovering from recognition errors.

Many farmers told that the ability to access information at any time would have a

significant impact on their farming practices.

A few farmers singled out the ability to share their personal experiences with other

farmers and with DSC staff as a key benefit of the system. The service was available


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meteorological information (weather forecast and agromet-advisories) and develop

suitable dissemination system, to the farming community in order to improve

crop/livestock productivity.

The DAAS is multidisciplinary and multi-institutional project. It involves all

stakeholders such as State Agricultural Universities (SAUs), Indian Council for

Agriculture Research (ICAR), Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVK), Department of

Agriculture and Cooperation, State Departments of Agriculture/ Horticulture/ Animal

Husbandry/ Forestry (up to District level offices), NGOs, Media Agencies, etc. The

India Meteorological Department (IMD) has a network of 125 Automatic Weather

Station (AWS) and a large number of manual observatories.

Agromet Field Units provides district level weather forecast and advisories. These

advisory helps in crop protection and growth of crop. Weekly Medium Range

Weather Forecast for 630 districts was communicated through Regional

Meteorological Centres (RMCs)/Meteorological Centres (MCs) for preparation and

dissemination of Agromet Advisory Service bulletins. Weather based agro-advisories

are disseminated to the farming community at district level through mass media


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Agromet Advisory Services are not limited to only radio, print and TV as medium but

information is also disseminating with Mobile SMS to the farmers. It has reported that

there were received 37 calls from farmers during 9 am to 12.30 pm (February 12,

2011) and also pointed that farmers are preferring telephone call as well as Mobile

SMS for mode of accessing weather information and advisory. A study conducted in

Bihar and the results showed that 40 percent farmers opined that AAS is very good

where as 40 percent farmers responded as good and 15 percent as satisfactorily.

4.1.6 Community FM Radio

TNAU Community FM /e-Radio (Vijayaraghavan, 2009; Kalaiselvan, 2009; The Hindu;

2011; Newkerala, 2011; TNAU Agritech Portal, 2010)

TNAU FM/e-Radio project was jointly initiated by the Tamil Nadu Agricultural

University (TNAU), Coimbatore, Media Lab Asia and World Development

Foundation in Tamil Nadu. This project was sanctioned by the Ministry of

Information & Broadcasting. The broad objective of this project is to share the local

agriculture information among local people through local language (Tamil). The


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are also being a part of the broadcast. Progressive farmers are sharing their

experiences through the FM radio that would encourage fellow farmers.

It established a social linkage by interfacing with faculty on the preparation of

training capsule on community radio as an effective ICT tools/media. They include

everything in his programmes such as instant reaction recorded, face to face with

scientist with minimum distortion. Under this programme there is effective utilization

of human resources. The listeners are asked to raise questions on particular

community issue. From this programme resource person himself is trained to operate

and listen his programme. There are three top most clients involved in Community

Radio Station (CRS). These are identifying information givers; identify information

seekers and channelize through CRS.

As on February 2011, nearly 300 hrs need based programme has been produced with

the active participation of people and scientists. They are planning to use this station

for agri-education, research highlights sharing and extension activities and many more

purposes in near future.


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Communication Private Limited, IIT-M, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

and Harvard University. This project was launched in April 2000 and expanded in six

others states (i.e. Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh

and Rajasthan It covered approx 2000 villages across 30 districts in these states.

The major objectives of this project were to research and develop appropriate access

devices for rural Internet and telephony, to research and source other supporting

technologies such as alternative sources of power, to research and facilitate the

development of applications that will be useful to the users of the service in these

villages and to provide Internet and voice connectivity to rural India.

Apart from video conferencing for agricultural information, the experts were also

providing web based services on computer education, adult literacy, agriculture,

health, and e-governance. Kiosk operators also provided agriculture portal where

farmers can access information on weather, crop prices, and improved farming

technique and also they can sell tractors and spare parts.

Key factor for success of n-Logue project is an appropriate and enabling technologies,


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social networking tool on this web for awareness on ICT in agriculture to universitys

faculty members, departments officers, NGOs, progressive farmers.

This project was launched in 2009 in Karnataka and Uttarakhand states with the

following objectives: to build multi-modal delivery of agricultural information

services including online decision support systems based on the learning from

KISSAN- Kerala project; building portal based applications like Online Fertilizer

Recommendation System (OFRS) for State Agriculture University (SAU) (decision

support systems); building Web-GIS based location specific weather information and

forecasting system for the selected KVK`s of two SAU partners; providing necessary

training and capacity building support for the development of appropriate multimedia

video contents, setting up the media lab and production process at each SAU and

developing relevant multimedia content for SAU to be used in KVK`s, as extension

material.

In this project, about 104 crop tips in the form of SMS were disseminated to over

10,000 farmers through mobile technology. It also provided 250 audio crop tips on 27

crops through web based system. There is crop doctor forum where complete


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or soil test analysis based fertilizer recommendation for a preferred crop/location/area

of cultivation. The report contain details such as the soil amendments to be made,

organic manures to be used, also the quantity as well as frequency of use of

mixed/straight fertilizer. Web GIS based Soil Micro nutrient Information System in

Dharward district of Karnataka where farmers can access online visualization of soil

nutrients. Web GIS based location specific dynamic weather information and

forecasting for Karnataka and Uttarakhand states where farmers can access online

weather information and forecasting generated report. The positive results have

encouraged expanding other areas in near future.

(b) aAQUA (Ramamritham et. al., 2005; APDIP, 2006; Ramamritham, 2008; NAIP-ICAR,

2010)

aAQUA (Almost All Questions Answered) project is an online multilingual,

multimedia agricultural portal. Developmental Informatics Lab at Indian Institute of

Technology-Bombay (IIT-B) has developed this concept. Vigyan Ashram and Krishi

Vigyan Kendra (KVK), Baramati took part in the implementation of aAQUA project

in Maharastra since 2006. aAQUA was deployed in a network of kiosks covering


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browser. Early February 2008, the aAQUA portal had received 12,052 posts and

626,015 views and questions have come in from 290 districts out of more than 600

districts in India. Any noncommercial user can browse the forums for free, although

users must register on the site before posting a question.

aAQUA can also be accessed without being connected to the site for forums, and

other pages. Because the content is stored on users computers and thereby avoids

network delays users can search and browse quickly. Offline aAQUAs local cache or

repository also updates whenever users connect to the Internet. Kiosk operators

charge less than 10 rupees per question. The goals of this project are database query

optimization and caching, cross-lingual multimedia information storage and retrieval,

and human-computer interaction.

aAQUA also has been made more substantial by adding SMS-aAQUA and Voice-

aAQUA, enabling experts to generate highly focused advisory and send them via

SMS and/or over voice. This integration of different techniques of communication has

been tried over a large scale (SMS: 17,000 farmers; voice: 26,000 farmers) for the

first time in India for agricultural extension purposes. Voice aAQUA was launched in


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mail alerts when prices of certain commodities of interest change in the markets of

interest. Crops library consists of collections of crop diseases (Crop Doctor), crop

recommendations and translated aAQUA threads. The collections are built centrally

using open source software called Greenstone. Some agricultural and veterinary

problems are better addressed by photographs or audio and video files which provide

details to the expert. aAQUA allows attaching images taken by a digital camera or

scanner and experts can zoom to specific portions of the images.

The project has actively developed a range of strategic partnerships with relevant

institutions to scale up and expand the aAQUA related services across India. Further

growth is strengthened by the business revenue models developed by the project.

4.1.9 Multimedia

(a) Digital Green(USAID, 2011; Gandhi et. al., 2009; Gandhi et al., 2007; Digital Green,

2010)

Microsoft Research Indias Technology for Emerging Markets had been involved in

developing a Digital Green (DG) in 2006 and deployed in Karnataka state. Currently


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The main function of DG is involved in video repository included field

demonstrations led by agri-scientists, testimonials of progressive farmers, interactions

among farmers, and market-based opportunities. The videos averaged 10 minutes in

length. Video contents belonged to the broad categories of crop management, animal

husbandry, indigenous technologies, value-addition activities, bio-fertilizers, Vermi-

compost, pest management, composting methods, water management, and

entertainment. The video recordings can be grossly classified in the categories of

awareness, training, advisory, and entertainment. Recordings has made by teachers of

agriculture, scientist, NGO expert, field staff, progressive farmers and other

volunteers.

DG gives training through digital video in local language. The distribution of videos

from the DG database to farming communities is by physically mailing or couriering

DVDs. A group of farmers of particular village is provided TV and DVD player by

NGO field staff and managed by local farmers to dissemination of agri-information.

Most are willing to take only a short diversion from this daily routine between the

hours of 7 to 9 pm.


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greater acceptance and encourage local competition within a community. They charge

nominal fee (Rs. 2-4) per farmer per screening for revenue generation. Farmers

subscribe to the service as a part of their membership fees to farmer organizations,

such as producer companies, cooperatives, and self-help groups (SHGs) federations,

where they exist, and partners share upfront and recurring costs.

Currently DG depends on outside grants to replicate its model with NGO partners and

negotiates cost-sharing agreements with these partner sand the communities that they

work with. DG charges fees for technology development and training support services

to commercial partners.

(b) I nteractive Mul timedia Compact Disc (Anandaraja et al., 2007)

Interactive Multimedia Compact Disc (IMCD) project was sponsored by Departmentof Scientific and Industrial Research under Ministry of Science and Technology, New

Delhi and operated by Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Sociology,

Agricultural College and Research Institute in Madurai of Tamil Nadu state. Project

was started in July 2006 and completed in December 2007 (18 months duration).


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a comprehensive, interactive and user friendly manner. Using the IMCDs, latest and

updated agricultural technologies were transferred to the farmed women user groups

thereby increasing their knowledge and skill in local language (Tamil).

4.1.10 Online Video Channel

Kissan Information Dissemination and Networking (Ajith, 2010; Stockholm Challenge,

2010; eINDIA, 2009; Business Line, 2009; KK, 2010)

Kissan Information Dissemination and Networking, Kerala (KISSAN-KERALA)

project came under Kerala IT Mission and project was conceived, developed and

managed by Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management-Kerala

(IIITM-K). It has taken a time of 6 months duration for deployment and 6 additional

months for services development, impact analysis, review, concurrent approval and

launch of phase. It is an integrated, multi-modal Agricultural information system. The

project was officially launched on 1st November 2003 (Kerala day).

The project solves the problem of content gaps by providing the authentic agricultural

information though various delivery methods like Television, Internet, Telephone,


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Kuttanadu in English and Malayalam. The project is managed by a team of

professionals from agriculture, IT and agri-journalism.

Farmers can seek the advisory from the expert scientists through online and get better

scientific advisory for their problems. It offers several services like crop advisory,

weather forecast, soil test information etc through farmers mobile. Mobile service

dedicated in PAN India based. TV based project has produced more than 1000 hours

of digital quality video materials on best farming practices, success stories of farmers,

women groups, technical information, method demonstration, organic farming etc in

Malayalam language.

General services are best farming practices, crop management advisory, weather

advisory based on GIS, market information, research highlights, information on Govt.

schemes/policies, on demand advisory services, fertilizers recommendation system,

post question for expert answer, panting material availability, answered queries,

fertilizers and pesticides. Kissan Krishideepam provides selective information

dissemination of best practices, success stories, departmental news, news on various

schemes, market analysis, cultivation methods, analysis of current issues etc. The


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collaborated with Google and YouTube for providing online video channel. They also

provided crop specific play list and catalog on the internet. Users can also access this

video on mobile through General packet radio service (GPRS) / Wireless Application

Protocol (WAP) or Google Application Programmable Interface (Google API).

The impact of the project indicates that agricultural production in the state has

drastically improved during the last two years. The project has played a very major

role in the growth of agricultural production. eINDIA 2009 recognized exemplary and

innovative projects which demonstrate the use and application of ICT that have

transformed social development opportunities into sustainable social enterprise. The

integrated service delivery model is highly scalable.

The dynamic portal based services are highly scalable and easily replicable to any

other place. The entire applications have been developed using open source

technologies and has open architecture for scalable. An impact has been seen by

mussel cultivation being done by women Self Help Groups (SHGs) at Padanna village

in Kasaragod (1600 ton per year). Under new market opportunity, more than 2 crores

rupees market opportunity in Gulf countries arranged through KISSAN.


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900 and sale has recorded mostly in small towns among farmers. The early

adopters were mostly the leader farmers in the area

Agriwatch Trade Weekly in Hindi Edition launched in July 2000 for small

traders located in upcountry markets and focuses on trade and commercial

information of importance to the trading community with annual subscription

fee of Rs. 1348

Daily/Weekly/Fortnightly Trade Research reports (on Email)-Trade Research

Reports cover several commodities such as Rice, Wheat, Maize etc with

priced at Rs. 2696, Rs. 4943 and Rs. 9437 for quarterly, half-yearly and annual

subscriptions respectively

Agriwatch on Mobile service launched in March 2003 aims at providing

timely and valuable trade information such as futures quotes, prices and news

to the subscribers by delivering the same on their cellular phones.

Commodities covered are Rice, Wheat, Maize, Oil Complex, Sugar, Pulses,

etc. For each commodity, the subscribers receive about 4 to 5 messages per

day on their cellular phone with price of Rs. 4495 annually

Agriwatch Monthly Magazine in both English and Hindi edition covering


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Since the Agriwatch model for service delivery was made commercially viable and

these were demand driven services, the probability of emergence of a sustainable

system was fairly good. They focused on content development and content selling. On

the content side, Agriwatch decided to do something different that distinguished it

from other portals in the Indian agribusiness sector. Instead of giving the routine,

static content, it decided to provide information that is time sensitive, analyzed and

presented in user-friendly format.

4.1.12. Phone based Information Portal

VoiKiosk (Agarwal et al., 2009; Manthan Award, 2008, ICTupdate, 2009; IEEE-HTN, 2009)

VoiKiosk project is a voice based portal or voice based toll-free interactive

information kiosk for a village and this service is available on the Telecom Networkand based on World Wide Telecom Web Technology. This project has designed and

developed by IBM Research to reach out to masses based on oral communication,

which is the forte of country like India. With partnership of Byrraju Foundation, the

pilot was deployed for villagers in the Juvvala Palam village in Andhra Pradesh,

South India and pilot launched in 2008. They have developed a kiosk template for a


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users themselves. This solution doesnt rely on Internet connectivity which is most

often not available in the rural areas and most importantly, it allows end-users to

directly interact with the services, thus removing the dependence on the kiosk

operator. A kiosk operator is usually identified for the VoiKiosk. The kiosk operator

has permissions to add different categories, and also to add and delete information in

any category.

The VoiKiosk system is live, 24 hours a day and all seven days of the week for eight

months. During this period, the system received a total of 114,782 calls from 6,509

villagers. On an average, while there used to be about 50 calls per day at the start of

the pilot, the last week of the pilot has witnessed more than 4,000 calls every day. The

toll-free number was accessible from any telephone and required no registration.

Under this portal, the expert will be able to post his advice for the farmer on the

VoiKiosk, reducing the turn-around time to 4 hours unlike currently method where a

picture of the crop is taken and sent to an expert, who then sends a reply back to the

farmer through the foundation. During this current method, the turn-around time for

this process is 24 hours. VoiKiosk identifies farmers based on their caller IDs. Other


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4.1.13. Personal Digital Assistant (PDA)

i-Shakti (Lahiri & Majumder, 2011; ARP, 2010; HUL, 2007; Kramer et al., 2009)

In the i-Shakti project, PDA has been used for rural information in Nalgonda district

of Andhra Pradesh across 50 villages in the year 2000 in partnership with local Self

Help Groups and Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL). The objectives of this project

were the changing lives and boosting incomes in rural Bharat, to empower women in

remote rural areas and to enable HUL to reach inaccessible areas and thus to land a

win-win situation. Under Shakti project there are three initiatives such as Shakti

Entrepreneur, Shakti Vani and i-Shakti.

i-Shakti is IT-based rural information service was to provide demand driven

information and services across a large variety of sectors. In association with theAndhra Pradesh Government's Rajiv Internet Village Programme, it has been set up in

400 villages in Andhra Pradesh and has been functional since August 2003.

Apart from Internet based services, Shakti project has extended his services for rural

people through PDA. PDA version of i-Shakti system that was capable of


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and legal procedures. Farmers post their questions that are subsequently answered by

agri-experts. Users can access information through both kiosk as well as PDAs.

4.2 Agr icul tural Advisory I nformation Systems

The agricultural information with regard to crop cultivation aspects and also generic

information have been disseminated by using appropriate ICT tool. The agricultural

information are as follows; weather data, market price, availability of agri-inputs, pest

and disease management, organic farming aspects, soil testing, cultivation practices,

crop nutritional deficiency, weeds, fertilizer scheduling and recommendations,

suitable variety in particular regions, agri-credits, e-agri-trading, crop insurance, cold

storage availability, agriculture contents, irrigation techniques, bio-fertilizers, vermi-

compost, agri-news, animal husbandry, crops tips, farm machinery and equipments,

cropping pattern, pre-and post-harvest etc.

The generic information is mainly on microfinance, health, life insurance, education,

Govt. schemes, e-Governance, entertainments, employment opportunity etc. It was

found that maximum number of ICT project has concentrated on market price


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4.3 ICT based Training for Farmers

Apart from agricultural advisory systems, farmers are also being trained by using

suitable ICT tools/media such as Multimedia, Web based systems, Radio dial-up and

Broadcast. The details of ICT based training is given in Table 1.

Table 1: Project wise ICT based training for farmers

Sl. Name of project ICT tools/media Reference

1 e-Arik Multimedia Raj(2009)

2 e-Krishi Vipanan Multimedia (Video) MAP-IT (2006)

3 Tata Kisan Kendra Multimedia (Films) Talwar et al.(2005)4 e-Agro Multimedia (Video) Garudachar (2010)

5Skill development for e-

learning in agriculture

Web, CD/DVD eINDIA (2010)

6e-Velanmai Multimedia (Video) Stockholm

Challenge (2010)

7 Digital Green Multimedia (Video) Gandhi et al. (2007)8 e-Krishi Multimedia (Video, CD) Kelkar (2009)

9 Jagriti-e-Seva Web Sandha (2007)

Rice Knowledge Web RKMP(2011)


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Under e-Agro project, it has started agriculture vocational training initiative for small

farmers, where videos of agriculture best practices are being showcased to farmers.

The agro training provider accesses a library of Best Agro Practice Videos through

the internet broadband. These videos are structured as short clips that can be

downloaded on demand and shown. After viewing this video farmers interactively

post his queries (through the literate training host) and in time will receive feedback

from the many agro-experts who are virtually available through the web (Garudachar,

2010).

Digital Green (DG) gives training through digital video in local language. Videos are

available on the DG Web site (http://www.digitalgreen.org)and the principal means

of distributing videos from the DG database to farming communities is by physically

mailing or couriering DVDs. A group of farmers of particular village is provided TVand DVD player by NGO field staff and managed by local farmers to dissemination of

agri-information. Currently 36251 farmers are involved. Most are willing to take only

a short diversion from this daily routine between the hours of 7 to 9 pm. The night

showings usually involve small groups of about 20 to 30 farmers that are willing to
http://www.digitalgreen.org/http://www.digitalgreen.org/http://www.digitalgreen.org/http://www.digitalgreen.org/


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Another ICT project named as e-Velanmai project which run a video film explaining

the process of technology transfer, implementation and success stories of agricultural

practices running to 8 min in English and Tamil video is uploaded in the website

www.evelanmai.com which also briefs about the scheme activities with photographs

(Stockholm Challenge, 2010)

4.3.2 Web based ICT Training for Farmers: Warana wired project allowed farmers to

use intranet-based e-learning program which is menu driven with a variety of software

applications while India AgriLine project provides intensive training offered by EID

Parry through high audiovisual content on the internet to make accessible even to

illiterate farmers and also helped in the rapid diffusion of the ICT. Farmer also can

learn agriculture content in details via e-Learning project of TNAU offers agricultural

education to special groups of rural people in general and school dropouts small andmarginal farmers and women in particular (Harris & Rajora, 2006; IASP, 2011;

Palanisami, 2007).

Jagriti-e-Seva project is providing training material about the Medicinal and Aromatic

Plants (MAPs) in Punjab. It has been prepared and provided on the Jagriti kiosk


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Rice Knowledge Management Portal (RKMP) provides e-learning platform with at

least 5 courses in Hindi and English. It also provides synchronous on-line training

support and asynchronous knowledge support (RKMP, 2011).

4.3.3 Multi ICT based Training for Farmers: Skill development for e-learning in

agriculture project developed digital products like multimedia, vocational modules

and e-learning in training and education for agriculture stakeholders. Innovative

courseware and content for the benefit of large number of users for delivery made

through internet and CD/DVD (eINDIA, 2010).

4.3.4 Radio Dial-up and Broadcast: Through Avaaj Otalo project, farmers learn and

train on best agricultural practices, the advice of experts, and the experiences of one

another through radio dial-up and broadcast (Patel et al., 2010).

4.4 Chall enges in Implementing I CT based Agr i-advisory Systems

Despite the achievements in the ICT based agricultural projects, there were several

socio-technical challenges observed which have been reported in the following

headings:


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acceptance of the deliverables of the project (such as trust in the legal validity of the

computer printouts) amongst 6.7 million farmers. Finally, no doubt major power cuts

(6 to10 hours a day) also hindered the project (Harris & Rajora, 2006).

The e-Choupal which is one of the longest ICT projects in India provides agricultural

information through web based system faced lot of challenges. Frequent power cut,

poor connectivity and low bandwidth were some of the major challenges. During

power cuts, e-Choupal operator usually used battery for power supply but due to

limitation of battery backup they did not able to complete his job. Imparting skills to

the first time internet users in remote and inaccessible areas of rural India were also

posed high challenges. It was reported that a big resistance was found from agents and

the brokers during initial phase of implementation. It was also reported that when

electricity was lost, phones cease to function to connect internet and also no localsupport staff to maintain or troubleshoot telephone exchanges. It was also observed

that transmission speed was so slow that it renders Internet access impractical. Users

lack of familiarity with the operating system was led to technical challenge. Another

challenge was found that support staff had been the malfunctioning of equipment due


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skills. Insufficient number of mobile phone availability at nominal fee for assessing

the market price was also shown the major challenge (Govindaraju & Mabel, 2010).

e-Sagu project is a web based application of IIIT, Hyderabad. It advices on pest

disease management and Integrated Pest Management (IPM) practices through agri-

expert. The farmers had showed poor response to agri-expert advice due to lack of

confidence on them. For example: Farmer had prevailing notion that the application

of wettable sulphur will result in flower dropping. Lack of adequate confidence of

farmers has been seen in the project in the beginning stages. The adoption rate was

quite discouraging in the beginning. A few farmers did not take enrollment in the

beginning due to their casual attitude towards the project. It was reported that when

the coordinators were visiting the fields for taking the photographs, it was noticed that

the single set of batteries were not sufficient and therefore, they are provided withsecond set later (Reddy et. el., 2005).

Samaikya Agritech Private Limited was launched web based application by

establishing Agritech Centre in Andhra Pradesh. It provides technical assistance to the

registered farmers. It was observed that one centre closed down within three months


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for obtaining copies of land records, an online public grievance system and a village

auction site. They have reported that slow and unreliable dial-up connectivity and an

irregular power supply and had forced additional investments in power backup

(Bhatnagar et al., 2003; Harris & Rajora, 2006).

In TARAhaat project that was launched by Development Alternative (NGO) in Uttar

Pradesh. It provides weather forecasting, procurement services, sales negotiations and

other services. It has been reported that the project was faced difficulties asGovernment departments did not support the NGO initiative as originally expected.

There was major challenge that the returns from the rural kiosks were miniscule

compared to the investments made by private entrepreneurs. Another challenge was

that the project which was also depended heavily on e-commerce activities, which

could not be realized in the project area (Harris & Rajora, 2006).

In the Uttamkrishi.com project which was started by Chambal Fertilizers and

Chemicals Limited in seven states of India. It gives information on crops and

agronomic practices. It was observed that infrastructure constraints (electricity /

power, AMC provider), facilitator required (due to low skill level of farmers),


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found it difficult to grasp the knowledge and skill in handling ICT tools/media

(Stockholm Challenge, 2010).

Krishinet project was launched by Government of Madhya Pradesh. It is providing

information on agriculture recommendations, packages of practices, farm

management practices, rate, supply and availability of agriculture inputs like seed,

fertilizer, pesticides, implements and bio-products. The greatest challenge they found

was geographical spread of the number of outlets/offices where project has beenimplemented. The co-ordination and monitoring of progress of different components

of project was the key challenge. The existing e-readiness and IT literacy status of

departmental officers, employee was another big issue. The general attitude of

rejecting and questioning the success of new technology in rural condition has created

road blocks during requirement collection and implementation of project (Sharma &Jain, 2009).

Infothela project was initiated by Media Lab Asia, IIT-Kanpur. It serves the purpose

of education, entertainment and provides agriculture based information, weather

information, health care information, government information. It has found that the


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content. It has arised due to the heterogeneous data in aAQUA (both textual and non-

textual elements), improper grammar and spelling (requiring corrections) and at times

manual choice of metadata. Yet another challenge was the number of variables that

makes each farmers question unique even though they may be expressed in similar

ways on aAQUA. Another issue was temporal validity of historical answers in the

database. The challenge with providing many repositories (although related) was that

of organizing and updating the content. One another challenge was that the leased line

was the weakest link in the delivery of data from the Internet (Ramamritham et. al.,

2005; APDIP, 2006).

AGMARKNET was launched by Agriculture Informatics Division of National

Informatics Centre (NIC) in all India Constrains have been found in AGMARKNET

project are complexities involved in system integration while dealing with differentvendors. Many of the markets are located at below district level where, in general, the

communication system in the country is not reliable enough to enable implementation

of web based data entry applications over dial-up lines. Farmers and other

functionaries in the markets are usually familiar with local language only.


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fear of sales and income tax, language (portal only in English), non availability of

commodities, lack of storage facility, fear of trading through the net (Not seeing the

buyer), inability to honour forward posting due to natural calamities and fluctuation of

market rate and menace of middle men (Kelkar, 2009).

The e-Village project is giving information on farm agri-advisory services, local

market, weather information, village adoption schemes, networking all existing

Agricultural Service providers. The challenge has only having Adi tribal dialect and itis hindrance to use Internet based content. Other challenges are electricity (irregular

supply of power at village), content (collecting appropriate agricultural technological

content was the problem) and Internet (frequent failure of telephone based internet

connectivity) (eINDIA, 2010). Lack of e-awareness and distance between villages

accessibility of centres to farmers are also an important challenges (Kathiresan, 2010).

4.4.2. Challenges in Mobile Phone and Print Media based Agri-advisory Systems:

Warana Unwired project provides agricultural information through mobile phone. It

has been reported that the tiny key pads on mobile phones were not the easiest method

of input for typing long strings of text, particularly for adults. They have also


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The Reuters Market Light (RML) project gives information on providing up-to-date,

customized 54 commodities pricing information in 270 mandis (crop wholesale

markets), weather updates specific to their taluk in the early morning (7:30 am),

market prices from three selected mandis and tips as well as best practices of

production related to specific crops (chosen by the farmer) in the afternoon, and also

relevant national and international news in the evening. It has faced challenges such

as poor infrastructure in rural areas, creation problem of personal distribution (directly

contact with farmers) and content networks (Collecting information), illiteracy, lack

of knowledge and skills of farmers to use voice activated services. For distribution

channel of this services RML involved in direct sales method and the post office

channel failed to produce satisfactory results. After initial reluctance and questioning

its viability, the farmers were receptive to the idea of RMLs service (Arora &

Cummings, 2010; Kumar, 2010).

The telephone based agri advisory services in Krishak Help Line Service project

providesinformation on farm-related problems and clarifies their doubts. It has faced

difficulty due to the poor telephone infrastructure, low literacy level and weak


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4.4.3. Challenges in ICT based Training for Farmers: In the Skill development for e-

learning in agriculture project, it has been reported that skill imparting to a domain

specialist in agriculture having minimal IT background to develop and manage an e-

Learning web site and daunting task too (eINDIA, 2010).

Digital Green (DG) was initiated by Microsoft Research Indias Technology for

Emerging Markets team. It is multimedia based application and available video

contents related to crop management, animal husbandry, indigenous technologies,value-addition activities, bio-fertilizers (Vermi-compost), pest management,

composting, water management, and entertainment. They observed that project has

faced challenge like some farmers may be hesitant to be perceived as leaders in

certain audiences (Gandhi et. al., 2009; Gandhi et. al., 2007).

Interactive Multimedia Compact Disc (IMCD) serves video content on System of

Rice Intensification (SRI) techniques, Eriophid mite control in coconut, integrated

pest and disease management on tomato, vermicompost production, mushroom

production, integrated rat control measures, drip based sugarcane cultivation

technologies, hybrid maize production and hybrid rice production. It has faced


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commands, which was perceived as unnatural. Talking to the computer was an

unfamiliar idea. Difficulty has been found in recovering from errors made by either

the system (recognition error) or the user (bad or no input). For accurate speech

recognition, it needs to be calm, quiet environment and easy dialing (placing the

dialpad in front of users). Challenges related with Dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF)

were one difficulty with the DTMF interface which was in transitioning between

dialed inputs and speaking and which was required in the final task for recording the

users question and personal information. A difficulty across both modalities was

navigating command-driven menus and knowing when to provide input. Every

spoken prompt was followed by a beep to indicate that input was requested. The

prompts did not explicitly mention the beep, and many users either gave input too

early or not at all. This system has very limited navigation features. Indexing and

search of complete voice transcripts is likely to be infeasible for low-resource

languages and there are obvious privacy concerns. Voice communications is

traditionally one-to-one or one-to-many but not many-to-many (Parikh, 2010; Patel et

al., 2009).


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faced many challenges. Continuous up gradation and integration of emerging novel

simplified communication technologies in e-Extension initiatives. Another main

constraint is to convergence of state department, Agricultural University Research and

Extension Programmes with KSC (Nagasree, 2010). In the i-shakthi project where

they have also incorporated the Personal Digital Assistant with the existing internet

based information advisory, it has been reported that there was a data loss in PDA

based system due to battery failure which is commonly reported in PDA systems

(TTC, 2009).

4.5 I ssues Related to Sustainabil ity of ICT E ff orts in Agr icul ture

In order to sustain the ICT based projects, revenue generation should be considered as

one of the important factors. In several ICT initiatives, they charge some nominal fee

from the users towards registration as well as advisory purpose. Raj (2009) suggested

that ICT project can be financially sustainable after minimum of two years of starting

particularly in tribal areas because people in a village and other stakeholders need to

understand potential and benefits of ICTs during the course project period. In

participation with local self governance called as Panchayati raj systems and various


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5. Conclusions

From the present review study, it has been found that the penetration of internet in

rural area is still low as compared to urban areas. It was also reported that wherever

presence of internet that needs great skill to operate computer. This was one of the

high challenging tasks in ICT based projects. In view of increasing mobile phone

users, it has been suggested that mobile phone could be effectively utilized for

farming advisories. With the advent of new technology such as 3G mobile, thenumber of facilities and options has also increased and that would be great scope for

innovations. Therefore several ICT projects are now incorporating mobile phone as

one of the ICT tools/media.

Intervention of GPS, GPRS, IVRS, GIS, Remote Sensing and wireless network

technology have created lot of scope to innovate with unique solution for problems

existing in Indian agriculture. Multimedia based system is user-friendly ICT

tools/media for training to the farmers in local language. Electricity, poor telecom

connectivity and low bandwidth, education level of farmers showed major challenges

in ICT projects. Revenue generation is major points for attaining sustainability of ICT


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INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY (ICT) INITIATIVES IN INDIAN AGRICULTURE