SRINAGAR: Chief Secretary, Dr Arun Kumar Mehta, Wednesday maintained that the use of advanced technology like artificial intelligence and other practices can increase the farmers income manifold.
He made these remarks while chairing a meeting of Steering Committee for Digital Agriculture Mission (Agristack) to discuss mission’s implementation here.
Additional Chief Secretary Agriculture Production Department, Financial Commissioner Revenue, Commissioner Secretaries of Forest, Ecology & Environment, Rural Development Department, Revenue Department, Information Technology Department, Vice Chancellors of SKAUST Jammu/Kashmir, Director Ecology, Environment & Remote Sensing, Director Rural Development Department Jammu/Kashmir, Director Agriculture Production & farmers’ Welfare Jammu/Kashmir and other concerned attended the meeting in person and through online mode.
Dr Mehta stated that the Agristack is the platform that can actually revolutionize the Agriculture sector. He made out that the introduction of modern technology aided by the globally acclaimed practices can give us extraordinary results in terms of both the quality and quantity of our produce.
He expressed that the administration aims at bridging the divide between the agriculture and technology. He set out that steps have been taken in this direction to provide farmers the real time information and solutions to their problems. He made out that the guidance and handholding of farmers by researchers and experts from our agricultural institutions has been ensured.
The Chief Secretary emphasised that our endeavor should be to provide end to end digitization to farmers so that they do not have to look for different services and solutions here and there. He observed that different interventions like digitization of land records, availability of expert opinions, farm practices guided by modern technology and techniques besides use of high yielding varieties of agricultural inputs can fructify the dream of doubling the farmers income in near future.
The Chief Secretary propounded that the real task is to create a database of all the relevant records and information for extending all the help readily on real time basis. He ascertained that such a provision can easily be achieved under Agristack, thereby becoming major boon for the farmers. He stressed on intensifying the efforts to at least double the Agricultural GDP in next 10 years. He asked for taking all the measures to make farming highly remunerative and gainful profession.
It was given out in the meeting the government is implementing the National Land Records Modernization Programme (NRLMP) and each farmer will have a unique digital identification (Farmers’ ID) that contains personal details, farm details, production and financial details. This id will help farmers to secure all services and benefits online in the future.
While discussing the potential benefits of the mission, the committee was informed that it would provide agriculture information &services, financial services, besides weather forecasts, knowledge sharing among farmers, transactional and access to government policies with greater ease and transparency.
Also, the meeting discussed the basic building blocks for Agristack which include farmers’ database with dynamic linking of land records, Geo referencing of village maps and GIS-based real-time crop surveys in the future.
The meeting was told that besides, farmer and Agriculture Department as stakeholders, Revenue Department, Ecology, Environment & Remote Sensing, SKAUST and Meteorological Department, Financial Institutions, Insurance Companies and National informatics Centre/Software Companies will also be key players for the successful implementation of Agristack in the UT.
