Enhancing Information Communication Technology (ICT) for adaptive agriculture by Pratima Shrestha
Pitch
ICTs in agriculture is growing interest to farmers which help them building resilience towards the climatic stress in agriculture.
Description
Summary
Farmers must be capacitated with formal and informal education through new ways of technologies. Farmer’s education through Information communication technology will enhance the productivity and access to market approach.
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in agriculture is an emerging field which communication device or application, including radio, television, cellular phones, etc., to enhance agricultural development. Internets, mobile apps, etc. are in use in increasing trend by farmers, middle man and consumers. The use of internet by farmers are also increasing. Small holder farmers are far behind to access the internet and various apps related to agriculture. At present there is a need in Nepal for dissemination of technological packages towards providing farmers with the knowledge and understanding with which they solve their own location specific problems. Hence, ICT is becoming of growing interest to farmers. The internet, mobile application on agriculture, agro-met advisory bulletins, mobile sms, farmers call centers etc. are helpful to build farmers resilience towards the climatic hazard.
Nepal government have initiated project on Agriculture Information Management System delivering various ICT services through various means like Agro Call Centre, Digital Display Board, SMS, Interactive Voice response, Mass media etc. in limited pilot districts. However, the continuous function and the sustainability is the main hindrance.
Information Communication Equipment’s like Mobile, Smart phone, laptop, Internet, servers, Camera, sensor, video, remote and/automatic control system are required to make farmers life easier and will help them with formal/informal education which will help them self-trained and boost their knowledge and skills to address the impacts of climate change and enhance resilience capacity.
Is this proposal for a practice or a project?
Project
What actions do you propose?
Agriculture sector is most vulnerable sector to climate change, especially climatic stress like drought, landslide, soil erosion, floods, hailstones etc. damages agriculture productivity. With increasing awareness of climate change adaptation through different program, the vulnerability assessment and local/community adaptation plans are prepared for the agriculture sectors. Various initiatives like Climate Smart Agriculture, Adaptive agriculture, are initiated. In context of Nepal, many of the local and community adaptation plan prepared in agriculture has focused on farmer’s education on weekly basis in community level. The new way of farmer’seducation through Information communication technology is limited. Information communication technologies (ICTs) has growing charm in various sectors like service industries, retailers, and technical support, including agriculture.
The lack of effective and sustainable equipments related to call center is require for providing full services linking with the experts, connecting them with call transfer etc. Lack of awareness and information on climate and weather to the farmers have deprived of managing simple techniques in agriculture and their day to day business of farmers.
Technology enhancement will be addressed to boost up agriculture production to lead self employment in agriculture and food security situation. Farmer’s access to latest technology and information related to weather forecast, agro met advisories, direct call in facilities with experts, market price comparisons etc. will support to enhance adaptive capacity of farmers.
Call center is growing interest in various sectors like Agricutlure, Forestry, Water Resources , Engineering where people can call and get the information they want and apply it their daily business. Even during Election 2017 in Nepal, call center were established to aware people. So, the call center can be a useful tool for material production, distribution and marketing chains are changing with improving infrastructure, communications, vertical business structures, integration into the world market, and the rapid rise. Hence the action proposed through this proposal are :
- Well-equipped call Center at least 10 in each agro-vet in the district.
- Equipment’s and software’s for Call Center
- Trainings of ICT equipment use,
- Training Facilities for handling of Call centers…
Who will take these actions?
Implementation level:
Agro vet Centers
Retired Agricultural experts
Farmers
Private setors
Technology:
National Information Technology Centers
Telecommunication Companies
Web-hosting companies
Finance:
Community based Cooperatives
Banks facilitating Agriculture Insurance
Policy Areas:
National Planning Commission, Nepal
Parliament Members
Office of Parliament
Where will these actions be taken?
Actions will be taken in 5 districts of Nepal
In addition, specify the country or countries where these actions will be taken.
Nepal
Country 2
No country selected
Country 3
No country selected
Country 4
No country selected
Country 5
No country selected
Impact/Benefits
What impact will these actions have on greenhouse gas emissions and/or adapting to climate change?
The use of ICT in agriculture will enhance farmers capability to make their decision in time and take action for forecast of heavy precipitation, drought, diseases etc. The number of call made by farers in the call center, number of farmers using ICT, mobile application, agroment advisory bulletins etc. and the change in their behavior pattern etc. will support the need of advance technology in agriculture.
What are other key benefits?
- Farmer aware through means of technologies make their decision to extreme events
- Modernization of technology in agriculture
- Sustainable call centre facilities for farmers and other stakeholders
- Availability of entire service agriculture at their community
- Promote agriculture with establishing value chain
- Sustainable agriculture for food security
Costs/Challenges
What are the proposal’s projected costs?
The proposed cost for this project is $25,000.
Timeline
In short term period: The project will be able to enhance the awareness of Information communication technology in agriculture to farmers in some district. The project will also be able to establish the call centre and make farmers habit of using call center, use of agromet advisory bulletiens for any problem related to their agriculture.
In Medium term period, the project will be able to scale up in all over the country. This initiative will be bale to have collaborative effort with other stakeholders in government and private sector. Private sector will be enhanced to make this initiative sustainable.
In the Long term, this initiative will be mainstreamed into the regular government program. Government and private ssecgtor would have collaborative effort to modernize the agriculture sector. New automatic technologies will be evolved.
About the author(s)
The author of this proposal is Ms. Pratima Shrestha. He has completed Master in Environmental Science and post graduate courses in Mountain Environment and Global Change, Natural Disaster Risk Management. She has more than 14 years of work experience in various fields like research, academia, humanitarian affairs, development, water resource management, disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. The author is currently a freelancer and doing part time consultancies engaging in climate change project in Nepal and as a lecturer of Disaster Management Policies for Master Students.
The co-Author of this proposal is Mr. Shib Nandan Shah who is government officials working in Ministry of Agriculture Development. He is running Agriculture Information Management System project in Nepal
Related Proposals
https://www.climatecolab.org/contests/2017/adaptation/c/proposal/1333943
References
- 2012, FACET Briefing Paper: Call Centers for Agricultural Information, USAID
- 2016, AMIS project progress report, MOAD
- 2015, Agriculture Development Strategy, 2015-2030. MOAD.
- 2016, Draft Detailed Project Report, “Design of Agriculture Management Information System for Nepal”. MOAD
- 2012 IJCIT, ISSN 2078-5828 (PRINT), ISSN 2218-5224 (ONLINE), VOLUME 02, ISSUE 02, MANUSCRIPT CODE: 120101
By:
Pratima Shrestha
