The role of agro- technologies in making digital India Successful

5 Dariya News

Madhya Pradesh 23-Aug-2018

In the last few years, we have experienced Indians are shifting more towards the digital world. Be it white-collar employees or the farmers the entire experience of the nation has transformed. Well, it is obvious that the ratio is different in rural and urban areas. And, still, some parts of the agricultural system/farmers have not evolved to meet new needs.But, those farmers who accepted the evolution become successful in comparison to those farmers who don't. We know that it is not easy to be a farmer in the 21st century and it is a challenging sector for our country. Those who know the modern techniques of the farming won't able to do the farming while those who don't know modern methods are still trying to cope-up with the continued changes in climate and atmosphere which directly or indirectly affects the productivity.As, Soybean is the main crop grown in Madhya Pradesh, so, back in 2017, we experimented on a farmer from Madhya Pradesh's Ujjain belt. The main aim of our experiment was to increase the productivity at a higher rate. And without accepting the digital technology it won't be possible for them to do the same. 

So, the reference of Gramophone in the region helped a lot. Gramophone is a new way to connect farmers to the digital platform through a missed call only. Yes, the farmer only needs to give a missed call on the number to know about the latest technique of farming. Coming back to our experiment, during a Kharif time (the time of Soybean) we convinced a farmer to opt a chilli cultivation in a small part of his land of 5 acres. He agreed and sown seeds of chilli only on  0. 3 acres land with the total expense of INR 10,000. On the other hand, on his remaining part of land i.e. 4.7 acres, he chose to produce Soybean which he usually tends to do with the total expense of INR 112,800.Adding momentum to this trend, a live example of this farmer is sufficient with all the exact rate of expense, received revenue and profit. As, after being a smartphone user he has the better option for his crops and even more than 50 farmers in Ujjain have started taking chilly a crop alongside Soybean in the region.Hence, the result of the experiment came. The revenue generated from chilli cultivation was more than soybean. It was 170% of soybean. In terms of numbers, the total revenue generated at the expense of Rs. 10,000 is INR 50, 000. It means a direct profit of INR 40, 000. While on Soybean, he earned the profit of Rs. 70, 500 only. To be concluded, we can say that the application of new technologies is still limited in rural areas and many farmers remain unaware of these advances. But, hopefully Gramophone can fulfill this gap in rural regions.