In Tamil Nadu, farm technologies are transmitted to farmers through State Department of Agriculture (Public), TNAUs, Private Dealers and NGO’s. Still, these agencies are following the conventional extension approaches such as Mass, Group and Individual. Due to the fast growing economy, these approaches are not able to deliver the technologies as expected by the farming community. The existing staff in the agriculture department, Government of Tamil Nadu is not matching with the growing rural population in the villages which has resulted in slow transfer of technologies and delivering of untimely information. Again, most of the time they are not giving need based farm advises than general or blanket. Further, following are the problems faced by the end user / farmer

• Lack of instant farm advisory support to farmer
• Lack of instant technical information support to field extension officials
• Poor weather and disease complex advisory
• Lack of market information support

Rationale

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is proved to be powerful tool to reach the downtrodden, neglected farming communities.  The ICT tools could be used for dissemination of the agricultural technologies and allied technologies in time with minimum budget.  ICT and e-connectivity tools could be used to deliver the information to all the farming community effectively without losing or distortion of the information.  It has an added advantage which resolves the limited staff crisis in the department. Hence it is proposed to establish e-agriculture extension service in Tamil Nadu to strengthen the extension system and delivering mechanism by linking and interface with KVKs, TNAU Research Stations, NGOs and Farmers Association. A sum of Rs.4.96 crores have been provided under NADP-2007-08 which includes connectivity charges for one year from September 2009.

Present Initiatives: TNAU AGRI TECH PORTAL (under NADP)

• First of kind in India, a farm technology portal designed and launched integrating allied sectors includes Agriculture, Horticulture, Sericulture, Seed Sector, Marketing, Fisheries, Forestry and Animal Husbandry. The launched  portal (http://agritech.tnau.ac.in) have feature of dynamic and multimedia based content coverage for the benefit of field extension officials and farmers in bi-lingual (Tamil & English) mode covers around 3.5 lakhs web pages. The portal has been dedicated to the service on 27th October, 2009 by Honorable Deputy Chief Minister and honorable Agricultural Minister. It holds A to Z of farming information for decision making at the field level. Further, the project has the component of linking all the centers of TNAU (36 ARS + 14 KVKs +8 Academic Campus + 4 PCCs) through Video Conferencing Facility to build an interface mechanism with Research Institutions and Farmers. TNAU HUB center has the future of up linking the conference connectivity to 385 AECs centres across Tamil Nadu through TNSWAN connectivity (Tamil Nadu State Area Wide Network).

•  The Government of Tamil Nadu is now equipping the State Agricultural Department with the State-of-the-art ICT infrastructures under NADP project which will facilitate to establish TNSWAN connectivity to all the Agricultural Extension Centres, District Headquarters, State Headquarters and TNAU research centre. A budget of Rs.1.35 crores have been allotted under NADP-2007-08.

• Daily market information is being provided (both online and mobiles) which includes wholesale and retail prices (for 160 perishable commodities) in 13 different markets, with the funding support of Ministry of IT & Communication.

• This portal and infra will give connectivity only to Block level Agriculture Extension Centre, District headquarters and State level head offices where the information can be shared and accessed through TNSWAN connectivity.

Proposal

The band width and the connectivity charges for the period from 27.10.2009 to till date have been met from the budget already allotted during 2007-2008. The 60 TNAU centres have been interconnected with video conferencing facility and the portal has been the first of its kind in India; the extension workers, farmers and industries shall derive immediate benefits out of it; the communication system within TNAU shall be shifted from telephone mode to video conference mode. Live webcast and streaming video is possible in non connected TNAU centres. At the same time, the respective end user should have the facility of Broad Band connectivity. The budget detail is given below:

(Budget in Lakhs)

• Domain Expert and Content Generation for the portal costs have been calculated based on the actual expenditure incurred for TNAU portals and website.

• Budget for Bandwidth, Video Conferencing and other operational costs have also been worked out based on actual expenditure incurred in the e-learning project and TNAU Portal programme.

• Updating and maintenance of Connectivity to TNAU Research Centres and Colleges which includes server, workstations and software tools costs have also been worked out based on the competitive rates approved by the TNAU and e-learning programme.

• Updating and development of Interaction part of the portal i.e., chat, forums, podcasting. Deployment of further information like Weather forecast & weather based cropping advise, Pest & Disease Information and forecast, Soil Test Database.

• Updating and development of e-Governance services of the Department, deployment of services like Online Expert Advise, Online chat, discussion & messaging, podcasting, Schemes and subsidies info.

•  Updating and deployments of services like weather based crop advisories, Market information, e-commerce services, e-governance services, document management services.

• Continuous Transfer of technologies to the last milestone of the farming community 

• On the spot farm advisory service through ICT

• Timely delivering of latest and need based information to the farming community (anywhere, anytime service)

• Field problem diagnosis through Video Conferencing mode and giving farm advisory services

• Providing information on updated Government Schemes, Programmes, and Announcements for the benefit of the target farmers.

• Updating the extension personal knowledge, skill and attitude towards agriculture and allied subjects then there through e connectivity.

• Establishing effective linkage between line Departments, KVKs, Research

• Dissemination of agricultural information through internet radio mode.

• Updating Market news and Ag Meteorology news for taking appropriate decision for improving crop yield.

• Continuous training on ICTs to the rural youth, rural women, farmers and unemployed as employment generating activities.

• Continuous use of portal for monitoring and evaluation, e-governance, tele-agriculture, tele-education, tele-medicine purposes.

Contact:

Director,
Directorate of Extension Education 
Tamil Nadu Agricultural University
Coimbatore – 641 003
Phone: 0422-6611352 0422-6611552
Fax: 0422-6611521
E-mail:dee@tnau.ac.in