Digital Services to Farmers PDF Download | Agristack PDF
“India Digital Ecosystem of Agriculture (IDEA)” which will lay down a framework for Agristack. Accordingly, a Task Force has been constituted and in furtherance, a concept paper on IDEA has been prepared and comments were invited from subject experts, farmers, Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) and general public.
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS WELFARE
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS WELFARE
LOK SABHA
STARRED QUESTION NO. 218
TO BE ANSWERED ON THE 3rd AUGUST, 2021
DIGITAL SERVICES TO FARMERS
SHRI SRIDHAR KOTAGIRI:
SHRIMATI SARMISTHA SETHI:
Will the Minister of AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS WELFARE be pleased to state:
(a) whether the Government has recently signed an MoU with a private company for creation / development of digital services and innovation in the agricultural value chain;
(b) if so, the details thereof;
(c) the steps taken so far by the Government to provide farmers access to digital services and their integration in the agricultural value chain;
(d) the total value of the services being provided by the said company and other details of the MoU; and
(e) the steps taken or proposed to be taken by the Government to ensure that the personal data of the farmers is not misused by the private company?
ANSWER: MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS WELFARE (SHRI NARENDRA SINGH TOMAR)
(a) to (e): A statement is laid on the Table of the House.
STATEMENT REFERRED TO IN REPLY TO PARTS (a) TO (e) OF LOK SABHA STARRED QUESTION NO. 218 DUE FOR REPLY ON 3rd AUGUST, 2021.
(a) to (e): The Department has commenced the work for creating Agristack in the country.
In order to create Agristack, the department is in the process of finalising “India Digital Ecosystem of Agriculture (IDEA)” which will lay down a framework for Agristack. Accordingly, a Task Force has been constituted and in furtherance, a concept paper on IDEA has been prepared and comments were invited from subject experts, farmers, Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) and general public. Once finalized, this can serve as a foundation to build innovative agri-focused solutions leveraging technologies to contribute effectively towards increasing the income of farmers and improve farm efficiency / efficiency of the Agriculture sector in the country with an overall goal of Doubling of Farmers’ Incomes. A federated farmers’ database is being built by the Department and once completed, this would serve as the core of the Agristack.
Leading Technology / Agri-tech / StartUp companies were identified and invited to collaborate with the Government of India and develop Proof of Concepts (PoC) based on the federated Farmers’ database. A public call through the Department’s website was also issued inviting proposals for MoU. Companies were invited to sign MoU on purely pro bono basis for a period of one year and develop PoCs. The PoCs will help in understanding solutions that can be built using available data and some of them, if found beneficial to the farmers will be scaled up at National level. In this regard, the Government has recently signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on pro bono basis with private companies, viz. Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Agribazaar, Patanjali, and ESRI for working on Proof of Concept (PoC) in the select Districts / Villages to develop a model for creation / development of digital services and innovation in the agricultural value chain. The services provided by the companies would be in the form of Proof of Concepts (PoC) and can not be quantified in monetary terms. The details of the MoU are given at Annexure.
The Department is reaching out to farmers of the country through various digital platforms including websites and mobile applications. With increased penetration of Internet & Smart Phones, the digital divide is getting narrowed.
As of now, the federated farmers’ database is being built by taking the publicly available data as existing in the Department and in various data silos in Government and linking them with the digitised land records. This Department in consultation with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology is in the process of bringing out a data policy for the agriculture sector.
Digital Services to Farmers PDF Download – Click Here