A National Virtual Academy for Indian Agriculture: To promote MOOCs for Agriculture Professionals

In 1960s, the early establishment of Agricultural Universities in India, on the pattern similar to that of the Land Grant colleges of the United States, contributed a lot in boosting the agricultural growth in the country and brought the integration of education, research and extension. The model has shown a direction in reorganizing and strengthening the agricultural education system in India and also helped in bringing diverse subjects in the course curriculum integrating provision of hands-on practical exposure to the student. The role of Indian Agricultural Universities has been significant in increasing food grain production from 51 million tons in 1950 to about 257.13 million tons (MT) in 2013-14. However, in the recent years these agricultural universities are failing to attract good number of students’ in comparison to other subjects

Knowledge to the poor revolution taking high-end scientific knowledge to the farm fields through innovative ICT tools and knowledge sharing approaches for a food secure future

The world’s population is exceedingly growing at a faster pace and is expected to reach 9.1 billion by 2050. To meet the growing needs of the world’s population, a 70% increase in food production is required. In a world where, millions of food insecure farmers’ livelihoods, rise and fall with the fate of agricultural produce every year, food security will continue to pose a critical challenge for years to come, reminding us that innovative solutions will be needed if we are to achieve global food security..

Appropriate knowledge and tools for smallholder farmers

Public funded agricultural extension is often inadequate in terms of infrastructure and human resources to meet the needs of smallholder farmers. For a more food secure world, it is imperative that millions of resource-poor small farms in developing countries significantly raise their agricultural productivity, are more resilient to shocks and seize opportunities to increase their incomes. To do so, farmers need access to, and be able to effectively use, appropriate information and knowledge in a timely manner according to their own situations.......

Linking farmers to research

To realize a food-secure world, millions of resource-poor small farms in developing countries need to significantly raise their agricultural productivity, become resilient to shocks and seize opportunities to increase their incomes. This can happen if farmers can access and effectively use the right information at the right time. Modern day information and communication technology (ICT) can play a significant role in extension efforts with improved efficiency and real-time advice. To meet the challenge of providing smallholders in India and sub-Saharan Africa with information, ICRISAT opened a Center of Excellence (COE) in ICT innovations for agriculture to link research, extension and markets

Micro-level Drought Preparedness with Information Management and Rural Knowledge Centres: A Framework to Support Rural Farm Families

Drought and desertification are serious problems that significantly affect hundreds of millions of people and ecosystems. When drought occurs, the farm communities are usually the first to be affected because of their heavy dependence on the stored soil water. If the rainfall deficiencies continue, even people who are not directly engaged in agriculture will be affected by drought. This underscores the vulnerability of entire societies to this phenomenon; this vulnerability varies significantly from one nation to another. Although crisis management approach is routinely followed approach for providing relief, the studies on drought, carried out in different parts of the world, suggested that preparedness is better than relief and information is backbone of drought preparedness. However, the efforts have been taken for generating micro-level drought assessment and early warning is least understood until recent years. It was therefore, in this study, an attempt has been made to develop a micro-level drought preparedness framework to support rural farm families. The established practices such as Sources of Agricultural Information management (International/National/Extra-Institutional), Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Enabled Rural Knowledge Centres (RKC), Open and Distance Learning Methods, micro-level drought assessment and early Warning technique have been identified as key components in developing such framework. These components were considered as the objectives of this research study, and conducted series of studies and experiments to understand the existing approaches and needed arrangements in defining and developing proposed framework. For each finding reported in the experimental objectives, a clear chain of evidence was established Abstract supported also by interview statements. The individual micro-level drought preparedness framework components were integrated carefully, based on the series of findings, systemic analysis of the data and the continuous interpretation of the observations, to develop the proposed framework. The study concludes that the proposed framework has shown a way to improve micro-level drought preparedness by bringing various ICT tools, information management techniques, open learning approaches, and micro-level drought assessment technique under one umbrella with an intermediary entity called ICT enabled RKCs owned and run by rural farm families. The usability evaluation studies on individual components revealed that the approaches such as these will have implications in planning micro-level drought preparedness strategies. The vulnerable rural families now have the means to estimate their own vulnerability and can use the information available at ICT enabled RKCs to make more informed decisions, which offers a sounder basis for designing drought preparedness and adaptation strategies

The right information at the right time: Building a multidisciplinary platform that links science with technology.

For a more food-secure world, it is imperative that millions of resource-poor small farms in developing countries significantly raise their agricultural productivity, are more resilient to shocks and seize opportunities to increase their incomes. To do so, farmers need to be able to access and effectively use the right information at the right time.Public-funded agricultural extension, which played a key role in bringing research into practice during the green revolution, is often inadequate in terms of infrastructure and human resources to meet the needs of smallholder farmers. The development of ICTs now is helping extension become more efficient and farmer-friendly, with real-time advice

Improving research data management and sharing: experiences from ICRISAT

Since 1971, the CGIAR and its partner organizations have been conducting research programs to contribute to the global efforts on eradication of hunger and poverty through institutional research activities and also through the CGIAR Research Programs. Research data of the activities are very valuable, can be seen as long-term assets of the institutions and can be treated as a major International Public Good (IPG). As these projects are supported with public funds it is essential to extract maximum public benefit from the research data. For the same, several donor agencies are now insisting on data sharing requirements in their grant contracts and for the ‘open data’ concept to be applied to the research data of the work they fund..

Rural E-seva, West Godavari, Andhra Pradesh

Rural E-seva, an administrative initiative in West Godavari district, is an example of how to operationalize an ICT project using available funds, by involving multiple stakeholders, including development of localized software with the help of students to minimize budgetary constraints. Currently, the project appears to be financially sustainable thanks to payments and non e-governance services. But the sustainability of e-governance in the long run is uncertain and dependent on the enthusiasm of the District Collector. The study indicates that the enthusiasm and support of government officials is vital for the success of e-governance and some degree of reorganization, along with the digitization of the system, is helpful in sustaining egovernance. The study also suggests that the development and financial sustainability of the kiosk reflects the socio-economic conditions of the beneficiaries and the services being offered in the kiosk. Offering more services demanded by citizens (mostly payments), along with other e-governance services, can bring the citizens to the kiosk on a regular basis

Knowledge Revolution for a Food Secure Future : Taking High-End Scientific Knowledge to the Farm Fields through Innovative ICT Tools and knowledge sharing approaches for a Food Secure Future

In this paper, the author will analyze and present the experiences from a few select pilot projects of knowledge sharing innovation programme of ICRISAT on ICT for agriculture and will discuss potential new strategies and policies needed to enhance and sustain adoption of ICT based novel knowledge sharing approaches that contributes to the sustainable agriculture development, especially of resource poor farmers and other actors in market and value addition chains. The author will also provide an outlook for a new paradigm for bringing together food security and ICT innovations in Agriculture for a food secure future through "knowledge revolution"

Appropriate knowledge for smallholder farmers will make the world more food secure

Millions of food insecure farmers could improve their yields, incomes and resilience if they have access to the appropriate information and knowledge which further helps them make informed choices about their farm. Yet, despite many new information and communication technologies (ICT) and successful pilot initiatives, reaching out to these farmers with the right information at the right time is still largely an unmet challenge. This is one of the reasons why the Second Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD2) conference highlighted this knowledge access issue as a priority to unlock the potential of smallholder agriculture for a food secure future..