The population worldwide is expected to reach almost 9 billion by 2050 and there will be so many mouths to be fed. Fertile agricultural land is no more increasing but we hear many fertile lands being sold away or used in constructing highrises. Now where would more food come from? To grow larger amount of crops on existing farmlands, some high end must definitely be used. Agricultural experts are taking the help of advanced technologies, data and analytics. Agricultural performances and developments vary from one country to the other because the crops differ and location plays a major role. But the whole world talks about having a technologically improved agricultural sector. Information technology is a bridge that connects the whole world.
In India, farming and agriculture is the core sector for nutritional and food security, lessening of poverty and consistent development. This sector contributes to 15% of the GDP. The recent milestone in Indian agriculture is Information and communication technology revolution. ICT is trying to bridge the gap by offering e-services, say the e-choupal, it can be considered as a very good example. This is a good instance of resourceful supply chain system authorizing the farmers with relevant and timely information helping them to receive good returns for their production. This app has a community centric approach, giving other offerings like farm management practices, insurance etc. In India there are other e-services related to agriculture like Kisan SMS portal, Kisan call center, Sandesh Pathak app, Village Resource Centers, Village Knowledge Centers and there are many other proposals for coming years.
Hyperlocality is very essential for the developing countries because there agriculture depends more on the small scale farmers who do farming on a couple of acres. In the developing countries the farmers throw some exciting logistics challenges. Hyper locality is crucial for an attempt that assures to boost crop yields, a part of precise farming. Agriculture is just like any other business where decision making is a big factor. In the recent times farmers should be agronomists, economists, meteorologists, conservationists and cognitive computing can make them real experts.
Now data, drones and robots contribute a lot to food and farming. Based on an article published by the Wharton School – “Big Data now offers the hope that the Green Revolution will be succeeded by a more sustainable Evergreen Revolution”. This article states the E-technology can be used in farming to develop new hybrid crops that are nutritious and robust, keeping the farmers informed about the best time and conditions to grow crops, providing local weather forecasts and tracking food from the farmland to being served on the table. As Bill Gates told the G-8 Conference on Open Data for Agriculture – “To reap the benefits of Big Data, it’s important to ensure this is publicly available and shared with research and development partners. Only then will we be able to create a rich data ecosystem to support the knowledge-intensive and location-specific enterprise of agriculture. This is especially important in developing countries”.
The benefits of E technology in farming:
- Better decision making
- More community involvement
- Advanced planning
- Agricultural advancements
- In-depth farming knowledge
- Precision Agriculture also called specific crop management or satellite farming
Current Information technology and primitive farming are no more apart, E – Agriculture is the new domain of knowledge rising out of union of technology and farming techniques. Development as we all know is a continuous process, it takes years to alter and do betterment to rural life. Sometimes due to poverty and low literacy rate it takes time for technology to penetrate, the ignorance hinders the E agriculture initializes. E technology has done real good and it will gradually change the scenario of the agricultural segment and promote rural development which will give a better life to the city dwellers. Smart technology has the real potential to change the countenance of agriculture into an improved vision in the time of lacking cultivable land and climate change.
