ICTmediated knowledge services for farmers and agricultural extension

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ICT-mediated knowledge services for farmers and
agricultural extension

• Case study from India

Gerard Sylvester Knowledge Management and
Sharing ICRISAT
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www.icrisat.org
12/28/2009
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A Triple Helix Model for Knowledge System for
Food Security
Source vasat.icrisat.org

• Strand 1 Sources of Agricultural Information
• Strand 2 ICT4D models
• Strand 3 Open Distance Learning Methodologies

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

• 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

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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.

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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
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K Org in Indian Agriculture
NGOs
KVKs
DoA
SAUs
QA activities Log (aAQUA)
Wiki-like Content Management System
Ontology (Agropedia)
ICAR
Intl. agencies
K-Base
Other NARS agencies
Commodity Markets
Weather / Meteorology
Dynamic Data
Imagery/ Maps
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Novel Content Creation Delivery Services in
Indian Agriculture
T.V / Radio
Interfaces
Knowledge Organization
Print
VKCs
Smart interfaces
Special Workflows
Call centers
Partners
Fixed / mobile Phones
Virtual Organization
Users
Stakeholders
Collaboration and Capacity Building processes act
as the glue to various components here
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Agricultural Content
Led by the International Crops Research Institute
for the Semi Arid Tropics

• 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

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Sample Content Developed by ICRISAT

• BOTH Quality and Quantity stressed

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Collaborative Development of Knowledge Models
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AGROPEDIA http//agropedia.net
Led by Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
(IIT-K)

• 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

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aAQUAhttp//www.aaqua.org/
Led by Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
(IIT-B)

• 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

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

• 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

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Novel Content Creation Delivery Services in
Indian Agriculture
T.V / Radio
Interfaces
Knowledge Organization
Print
VKCs
Smart interfaces
Special Workflows
Call centers
Partners
Fixed / mobile Phones
Virtual Organization
Users
Stakeholders
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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 AUs keen on adding content
• New tech deployed successfully on a larger scale
  than envisaged aAQUA-SMS
• WebGIS activities coming into their own

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GIS tools for village-level drought vulnerability
assessment
Led by the International Crops Research Institute
for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT)
Micro-Level Drought Vulnerability Maps
Use of two-way video conferencing provided by
ISRO is used as a medium to assess communication
effectiveness
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Thank you!
We will build new human capabilities at every
level in Indian Agriculture
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Presented at
http//vasat.icrisat.org/
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http//agropedia.net/ http//test2.icrisat.org/
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http//agropedia.net/
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http//www.aaqua.org/
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Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay
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Open WebGIS based advisories
Led by the Indian Institute for IT and
Management, Kerala (IIITM-K)