ICT-mediated knowledge services for farmers and agricultural extension

Case study from India

Gerard SylvesterKnowledge Management and Sharing

ICRISAT

www.icrisat.org

04/10/23 2

A Triple Helix Model for Knowledge System for Food Security

– Strand 1: Sources of Agricultural Information

– Strand 2: ICT4D models

– Strand 3: Open & Distance Learning Methodologies

Source : vasat.icrisat.org

•Analysis of 6 select projects in India (out of 144) by an MIT-India joint study group in 2005-06

prevalence of top down approaches with few attempts to reflect the end users preferences and needs;

production advisory services and market access do not go together;

ICT-infused Extension Support Projects In India: What do we learn from them?

• Lack of quality & quantity of digital agricultural extension material

•participation of agricultural education and research institutions is marginal;

• Localization and customizability of content are still not practiced on a significant scale.

ICT-infused Extension Support Projects In India: What do we learn from them?

Re-designing the farmer-extension-agricultural research/education continuum in India with ICT-

mediated Knowledge Management

ICRISAT, IIT-Kanpur, IIT-Bombay, GBPUAT, UAS-D, IIITM-K, NAARM

Wiki-likeContent Management

System +

Ontology

(Agropedia)

ICAR

Intl.agencies

OtherNARS

agenciesCommodity

Markets

Weather / Meteorology

DynamicData

SAUs

K-Base

Imagery/Maps

KVKsNGOs

DoA

Q&A; activitiesLog

(aAQUA)

K Org in Indian Agriculture

Special Workflows

InterfacesKnowledge Organization

Novel Content Creation & Delivery Services in Indian Agriculture

Partners

Virtual Organization

Users

Collaboration and Capacity Building processes act as the glue to various components here

Smartinterfaces

VKCs

Call centers

Print

Fixed / mobilePhones

T.V /Radio

Stakeholders

Agricultural Content

Content generated for all 9 mandate crops; (content for 5 crops contributed by ICRISAT)

Contributed to collaborative development of 9 crop knowledge models

Digital versions of Topic Maps and Concept Maps for 5 crops published

Significant infusion of Semantic techniques into the content repository

Led by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi Arid Tropics

Sample Content : Developed by ICRISAT

BOTH Quality and Quantity stressed

Collaborative Development of Knowledge Models

AGROPEDIA http://agropedia.net

Agropedia launched; semantic search interface developed.

Content tagged onto Crop Knowledge Models for nine crops

• Global first in the agricultural sector

Capacity Strengthening workshops across India ~ 500 PhD and Masters level professionals

Led by Indian Institute of Technology – Kanpur (IIT-K)

aAQUAhttp://www.aaqua.org/

Almost All Questions Answered (aAQUA)

Offline installations at State Agricultural Universities

Agri Advisory through aAQUA SMS: 100,000 per month SMS transactions

Voice aAQUA: enables farmers to ask questions, and files will be "played" to the farmer

Led by Indian Institute of Technology – Bombay (IIT-B)

Open WebGIS based advisories

WebGIS-based weather advisory system: prototype ready for two states: Kerala and Karnataka (almost 1000 locations)

Fertilizer recommendation system deployed and under test at one State Agricultural University

Nutrient and micro-nutrient data gathered from 12000 locations; basis for fertilizer use recommendations by farmers in Karnataka

Channel on YouTube: www.youtube.com/akmindia

Led by the Indian Institute for IT and Management, Kerala (IIITM-K)

Special Workflows

InterfacesKnowledge Organization

Novel Content Creation & Delivery Services in Indian Agriculture

Partners

Virtual Organization

Users

Smartinterfaces

VKCs

Call centers

Print

Fixed / mobilePhones

T.V /Radio

Stakeholders

Looking forward in this consortium

Dialogue and exchanges among NARES scientists and ICT resources on a sound footing• Rice KM project in India now includes

KM from here• More AU’s keen on adding content

New tech deployed successfully on a larger scale than envisaged: aAQUA-SMS

WebGIS activities coming into their own

Micro-Level Drought Vulnerability Maps

GIS tools for village-level drought vulnerability assessment

Use of two-way video conferencing provided by ISRO is used as a medium to assess communication effectiveness

Led by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT)

We will build new human capabilities at every level in Indian

Agriculture

Thank you!

Presented at

http://vasat.icrisat.org/

http://agropedia.net/http://test2.icrisat.org/

http://agropedia.net/

http://www.aaqua.org/

Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay

Open WebGIS based advisories

Led by the Indian Institute for IT and Management, Kerala (IIITM-K)