In the area of agriculture, the overall objective of the Government of Uttar Pradesh is to double the farmer’s income. All the initiatives are being taken in that direction. Information Technology has played an important role in achieving this goal.
Setting up a portal to directly transfer the subsidies on seeds into the farmer’s bank account is one such initiative, which has resulted in numerous benefits. Not only does it plug leakages but also guides the government in future planning. As the farmer details with respect to land holding is mentioned in the portal, the apportioned subsidy is sent to him, and that too it’s aligned to the kind of crops he plans to sow for a particular season. This wasn’t possible earlier because there was no data available on the land type and the type of crops the farmer is planning to grow for a particular agricultural season. “Thus within the same budget, we are able to provide the same amount of quality seeds to a larger number of farmers,” says Amit Mohan Prasad, Principal Secretary, Agriculture, Government of UP. This has led to increased agricultural production in the state.
In the last two to three years, a total of more than one thousand crore of DBT has been transferred to about 60 lakh farmers.
The state has also started using barcode and hologram for the seed certification. This enables the tracking of the seed bags from the farmer who produced the seed and then from the company which processed the seeds to the seller and then the process of certification. This can be captured online end to end. The benefits – the spurious seeds cannot enter the system and only the good quality seeds reaches the farmers.
In case the seeds are found to be of substandard quality, the seed manufacturing companies can be asked to pay the compensation. The result has been achieved in the form of production of certain crops going down because the unscrupulous seed producers withdrew from the market because of them now having to tag their seed bags with QR codes, holograms, etc.
Food grain production in Uttar Pradesh in the last two years has increased by 50 lakh tons because of DBT i.e online transfer of agricultural subsidies; consulting farmers on the right crop to grow during a particular season; using holograms, QR codes for seed certification and tracking. In 2016-17, the food grain production was 558 lakh tons, which shot up to 604 lakh tons in 2018-19. Over two crore farmers have been registered on the farmer portal in Uttar Pradesh.
Technology enabled agricultural extension for farmers
The Uttar Pradesh Government has used the digital medium for agricultural extension. In 2017-18, the state government had launched The Million Farmers’ School (TMFS), a program that sought to leverage its agriculture department’s 7,500-plus field-level staff strength, by designing an extension module for the rabi (winter-spring) planting season and conducting kisaan pathshalas for the dissemination of scientifically recommended package of practices specific to the crops grown at this time. “Through these pathshalas — training sessions spread over four days of roughly 90 minutes each, undertaken mainly in government primary/junior school buildings accessible to a cluster of villages — we could reach out to a million kisaans during that season. The program was repeated in 2018-19, both during the kharif (monsoon) and rabi cropping seasons,” states Prasad.
The state has also implemented a digital extension programme called ‘Vaigyanikon ki Baat, Kisaano ke Saath’ (scientists-talking-to-farmers). A four-hour program from 4 pm to 7 pm, carried out on June 4, it involved scientists from the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, CIMMYT (International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre), state agricultural universities and the department itself. They were all reputed breeders and agronomy experts, not just in paddy, maize and kharif pulses and oilseeds, but also sugarcane, fruits and vegetables, aromatic and medicinal plants, and livestock.
In all, 10 scientists and 2,000-odd farmers (about 20-30 of them in every NIC district centre) took part. The entire program was live-streamed. Therefore, even farmers who were not present at the NIC district centres could watch it live on their mobile phones. Even while they could not ask questions, the message certainly reached them. “We have no verified numbers on how many farmers watched, but given the wide publicity given before the event and the ubiquity of smartphones, it may have run to many lakhs. In fact, while the programme itself was going on, we started receiving photographs of men and women watching it live on mobile phones sitting in their villages!,” points out Prasad.