A central information hub to mine farm data launched

NEW DELHI: Amid reports of doubts on farm data including production estimates and sown area figures, the government has launched a centralised information hub to mine agricultural data for policy-makers, farmers, researchers and other stakeholders.
Aligning itself with the government’s ‘Digital India’ programme, the agriculture ministry on Wednesday launched an ICAR Data Centre - connecting 274 specialised institutions and universities - which will act as an information hub for the farm sector and eventually link the rural population with high speed internet network.
The Data Centre will ensure sharing of accurate data in transparent manner as it will help in removing anomaly, if any, in data processing.
The Centre, located within the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) complex in the capital, will be linked to ERNET (Education & Research Network) under the ministry of information technology. It will also cater to academic and research institutions by providing consultancy, project management, training and other value-added services.
“This ‘Data Centre’ of ICAR will play an important role in promoting digital India campaign in agriculture sector. The campaign aims at providing electronic services to the people while reducing the requirements of paper,” said Union agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh while launching the Centre and a mobile App for 'Krishi Vigyan Kendra' (KVK).
He said, “Many have expressed doubts about our production data. The new ICAR Data Centre will provide transparent and accurate data”.
His remarks came in the backdrop of doubt over the government’s production data in certain quarters. Traders of farm produce have recently even questioned the wheat production estimate of 93.55 million tonnes for 2015-16 crop year, saying the actual output was around 86 million tonnes.
The other value-added services which are to be provided by the centre include web hosting, e-mail services, video conferencing and domain registration. The ICAR was earlier not equipped with such centralized facilities for providing unified communication and web-hosting solutions.
The mobile App for KVK, on the other hand, will help farmers in getting those information easily and quickly. The KVK, an integral part of the National Agricultural Research System (NARS), aims at assessment of location specific technology modules in agriculture and allied enterprises through technology assessment, refinement and demonstrations.
The KVKs have been functioning across the country as ‘Knowledge and Resource Centres’ of agricultural technology supporting initiatives of public, private and voluntary sectors for improving the agricultural economy of the districts.
The user-friendly App will help farmers get all relevant information like weather, market price of agricultural commodities and other intimations related to the farming sector on their smart phones. Farmers will also be able to receive information about different agricultural programmes and schemes being run by the government through this App.
Highlights of data centre:
* A centralised data centre within the ICAR’s complex in New Delhi
* It will connect 274 agricultural academic and research institutions across India
* It’ll act as an information hub for agri sector
* All institutes to be connected on ERNET (Education & Research Network) of IT ministry
* ICAR Data Centre to also provide consultancy, project management and training