New Delhi, Sep 16 : The Federation of All India Farmer Associations (FAIFA), a non-profit organisation representing the cause of millions of farmers and farm workers of commercial crops, has lauded the steps taken by the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare to promote digital technology in the farm sector.
It has expressed gratitude to the government/concerned Ministry for taking a whole range of agriculture-friendly steps that will give added impetus to the pace of major farm sector reforms in the country and help in increasing farm income.
FAIFA believes that the move to foster technology adoption in the agriculture sector will enable farmers, especially smallholder farmers (SHF), to make informed decisions on crops to grow, seed variety to use, and adoption of best practices.
Additionally, it will provide a framework to farmers for future dealings while selling their products and help them navigate the market easily while also reducing the risk of uncertainty.
This is besides maximising the yield thereby making the agriculture sector profitable.
The farmer’s body understands that introduction of digital technologies in the farm sector will aid precise targeting of all subsidies, services, and policies to benefit the farming community.
This is in addition to modernising agriculture supply chains, enabling agri supply chain players to plan their procurement and logistics on precise and timely information.
It will also give a push to projects that use artificial intelligence, blockchain technologies” to modernize the country’s agriculture sector.
FAIFA is of the opinion that the government’s decision to partner with private sector enterprises establishes a common intention to educate and increase farmers’ income between government, companies, and farming community to bring in revolutionary changes in the Indian agriculture sector.This move will result in meaningful outcomes for smallholder farmers by increasing their income, protecting their produce, and encouraging future generations to also take up agriculture.
It urges the government to take appropriate steps for smooth implementation and execution of the digital agriculture mission, undertake its periodic review in consultation with farmers, and consider the inclusion of farmer representatives of FAIFA in crop-related stakeholders’ meetings and decision-making processes.
Javare Gowda, President, FAIFA, said: “We welcome recent decisions of the government to promote usage of digital technology in the farming sector.India is blessed to have a large pool of scientific human resources that are working relentlessly to address field-level problems and to evolve technological solutions.In addition, there are many technologies and practices developed by individuals and corporate bodies in the private sector.
Despite this, all the technologies developed by these scientists have not always reached all the farmers.It is heartening to see the government giving a big push to technology adoption in the agriculture sector which is currently underserved.”
Yashwanth Chidipothu, National Spokesperson, FAIFA added: “Recent government moves to facilitate the adoption of digital technology in agriculture will go a long way in addressing India’s agrarian crisis.It will complement enabling policy measures introduced by the government to transform the agriculture sector.
We urge the government to ensure its implementation in all sincerity so that the benefit of technology reaches all farmers and ushers in another green revolution in the agricultural sector.We also propose a periodic review of these measures in consultation with farmers to ensure they are able to fully benefit from it.
“We, the farming community believe that the above measures will transform the Indian agriculture sector and encourage future generations to also take up agriculture.We wish and hope that your contribution to our farmer friends will continue and that our bond is strengthened further
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