The Hindu Business Line : SEEDS OF E-AGRICULTURE

Can the impressive growth story of recent years that has made India one of world's fastest growing economies be sustained? This is the question on the minds of policymakers, businessmen and people at large. From the Prime Minister down, everyone asserts that growth can not only be sustained but also given a boost if, and only if, agriculture — the laggard, so far — grows at about 4 per cent a year, far above the annual average of about 1.5 per cent in the first three years of the Tenth Plan period. Rapid growth in manufacturing and services is creating a new set of Indians — the burgeoning middle-class that is decidedly turning consumerist — even as the rural populace continues to languish with limited incomes and growth prospects. Too much is at stake for the country to ignore the imperatives of this situation. The issues confronting the farm sector are so well-entrenched that the task of bringing about a real and sustainable resurgence in agriculture, with concomitant benefits to the rural areas, is truly daunting.

Could technology provide the answer? It is now believed that the country's inherent strengths in information and communication technologies (ICT) should be leveraged to address problems of agriculture. ICT could become the effective tool to facilitate delivery of each one of the four critical ingredients for successful farming — water, credit, technology and market. Quite a few successful innovative practices showcase the ICT benefits for the agricultural sector. Delivery of information using communication technology is sure to bring about much-needed transparency in all the activities that characterise farming. E-agriculture could be the way forward. Indeed, a combination of information technology and biotechnology can transform the rural landscape. Technology adoption will accelerate when benefits are demonstrable. But one must hasten to add that technology infusion by itself will not automatically revolutionise farming or bring about rural prosperity. Institutional reforms must precede technology adoption.

Appropriate risk management/mitigation instruments have to be designed. Success in agriculture through widespread adoption of technology is conditional upon two key factors — stepping up public investments and the political will to implement growth-oriented programmes. A serious national exercise to assess the human, technological and financial resources required to ensure a 4 per cent farm growth is called for. Consolidation of landholding, strengthening input delivery system, scientific water management, improved agronomic practices and building rural infrastructure are the key to sustained growth for which also ICT can be employed. But without State government participation these initiatives run the risk of getting aborted.

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