{"id":139893,"date":"2021-10-08T20:12:37","date_gmt":"2021-10-08T14:42:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=139893"},"modified":"2021-10-16T16:50:44","modified_gmt":"2021-10-16T11:20:44","slug":"seeding-a-data-revolution-in-indian-agriculture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/seeding-a-data-revolution-in-indian-agriculture\/","title":{"rendered":"Seeding a data revolution in Indian agriculture"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Synopsis<\/strong>: Two consultation paper, one by the Ministry of Agriculture and the other by Bain were released recently. They both talk about leveraging digital technology for helping farmers and supporting their livelihoods.<\/p>\n

Introduction<\/strong><\/h5>\n

The first consultation paper is on the <\/span>India Digital Ecosystem of Agriculture (IDEA<\/span><\/b>) from the\u00a0Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers\u2019 Welfare (MoA&FW). It\u00a0talks about a digital revolution in the agriculture sector.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The second is on Indian Agriculture: Ripe\u00a0for Disruption<\/strong> from a private organisation, Bain and Company. It predicts a revolutionary investment growth in agri-logistics, offtake, and agri-input delivery by 2025.<\/span><\/p>\n

What\u00a0is\u00a0Bain report?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n

The Bain\u00a0report\u00a0<\/span><\/b>is a data-based prediction on agri-business scenarios related\u00a0the agricultural set-up at present and predicting its
\nfuture trajectories in another 20 years. It includes targeting the production of alternative proteins, and food cell-based food\/ingredients and initiating ocean farming, etc.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The report has a \u2018<\/span>today\u00a0forward\u2013 future back approach<\/span><\/b>\u2019\u00a0and predicts a drastic investment\u00a0opportunity development by\u00a02025. The agriculture sector (currently worth $370 billion), is estimated to receive an additional $35\u00a0billion investment.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The two enabling conditions for such investment opportunities are the\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

–<\/span><\/b>changes in the regulatory framework,\u00a0especially recent changes in the\u00a0Farm Acts and<\/p>\n

-digital disruption<\/p>\n

As per the report,\u00a0<\/span><\/b>huge investments into\u00a0the\u00a0agri-ecosystem\u00a0can help to achieve the target of\u00a0doubling\u00a0farmers\u2019 income in near future.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What is IDEA report?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n

The IDEA-consulting paper is based on the Task Force and Working Group report constituted by the MoA&FW to design the blueprint of \u201cdigital agriculture\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

IDEA concept is aimed at farmer and the improvement of farmers\u2019 livelihood which can be achieved through <\/span>tight integration of\u00a0agri-tech\u00a0innovation and the agriculture industry ecosystem\u00a0<\/span><\/b>to farming and food systems.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Value-added innovative services\u00a0by\u00a0agri-tech\u00a0industries and startups are an integral part of the\u00a0IDEA architecture.\u00a0This will help\u00a0Indian agriculture sector\u00a0to become\u00a0a\u00a0single\u00a0national market with a national\u00a0platform with better connection\u00a0between producer and consumers.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What are some issues with these reports?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n

First,<\/strong> <\/em>the IT industry has opposition to IDEA due to the ethics of creating a Unique Farmer ID based on one\u2019s Aadhaar number and data misuse. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Second, <\/strong><\/em>the emission,\u00a0energy, and other resource footprints and sustainability issues\u00a0around these techniques must be\u00a0carefully studied to confirm the\u00a0projected trajectory (which is not\u00a0a part of the report).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Third,<\/strong><\/em> both these reports heavily rely on digital disruption to improve farmers\u2019 livelihoods. But they fail to discuss how much farmers will be prepared to benefit from these newly emerging business environments. <\/span>The reality is that\u00a0majority\u00a0of small and marginal farmers are\u00a0not\u00a0having practical knowledge of the technology.\u00a0Most\u00a0of them are under-educated for capacity building.\u00a0Overall, report ignored the capacity-building required at a farmer\u2019s end.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Fourth,<\/strong> <\/em>The Bain report relies on the general assumption that more investments into the agriculture sector will benefit farmers, <\/span>but it failed to answer how.<\/span><\/b> Also, the IDEA concept fails to clarify, how the technology fix will help resolve all the nine issues of Indian agriculture listed at the beginning of the report. T<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What is the way forward?<\/span><\/b><\/h5>\n

Though,\u00a0data revolution is inevitable in the\u00a0agriculture\u00a0sector, but we can not only rely on technology fixes to deal with the issue. <\/span><\/p>\n

We need to\u00a0improve the capacities of the\u00a0farmers in India<\/strong> \u2013 at least until the\u00a0educated young farmers replace\u00a0the existing under-educated small\u00a0and medium farmers.\u00a0This capacity building can be done through a\u00a0mixed approach.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

–<\/strong>building the capacities of individual farmers or\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

–<\/strong>coping with the\u00a0new situation by establishing support systems, through FPOs and\u00a0other farmers associations where\u00a0technical support is available for\u00a0farmers.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To fulfil this target, we need a separate programme<\/strong> across the country with considerable investment.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/strong>: This post is based on the article “Seeding a data revolution in Indian agriculture<\/strong>” published in The Hindu<\/strong> on 8th October 2021.<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Synopsis: Two consultation paper, one by the Ministry of Agriculture and the other by Bain were released recently. They both talk about leveraging digital technology for helping farmers and supporting their livelihoods. Introduction The first consultation paper is on the India Digital Ecosystem of Agriculture (IDEA) from the\u00a0Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers\u2019 Welfare (MoA&FW). It\u00a0talks… Continue reading Seeding a data revolution in Indian agriculture<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10328,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[9007,271,9184,216,288],"class_list":["post-139893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-agriculture-sector","tag-data-protection","tag-data-related-issues","tag-gs-paper-3","tag-right-to-privacy","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10328"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139893\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}