E-agriculture can spread with mobile: Govt

Noting that mobile technology can bring a real interface with farmers, the government on Tuesday said telecom and IT companies have more scope to develop e-agriculture and enhance farm productivity in the country.

Noting that mobile technology can bring a real interface with farmers, the government on Tuesday said telecom and IT companies have more scope to develop e-agriculture and enhance farm productivity in the country.

HT Image

"Currently, the reach of the mobile is higher than the internet. There is more scope for telecom and IT companies to support the government with new technologies in disseminating agricultural information to farmers," said Sanjeev Gupta, a senior official who deals with IT services in the Agriculture Ministry.

The government has developed so far over 75 agri-websites and portals and very few are in vernacular languages. However, there is much need to overcome major challenges of language and bandwidth, which can be dealt with using wireless technology, he said at a CII function in New Delhi.

"We have a bigger challenge in front of us. Farmers in the country do not understand English and we are finding it difficult to (disseminate) agri-information in regional languages. The translation industry should come forward," National Informatics Centre (NIC) Deputy Director General M Moni noted.

He also emphasised the need for IT training to agriculture graduates.