‘Embrace tech to make agriculture sustainable’

Technology makes farming more sustainable and the Tamil Nadu government is focussed on giving a vantage point to farmers so that they can negotiate on an equal footing, said Shunchonngam Jatak Chiru, Commissioner, Agricultural Marketing and Agri Business, Tamil Nadu.

The delivery of technology, if done through groups of farmers, will be easier to reach, he said while addressing a Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) southern region conference on Digital Agriculture here.

The conference highlighted that technology had the potential to make agriculture more productive, consistent and help farmers manage their resources and time more effectively.

e-NAM potential

“It is very essential that the farming community embrace the technology we bring in,” he said. “Digitisation or state-of-the-art technology you bring in, it is very essential that they are aware of it.

He felt e-NAM (National Agricultural Market) could grow to become the norm in a couple of years in the country and spoke about the efforts being made for easier accessibility and adequacy of funds for farmers. Tamil Nadu government is also investing and pushing for the food processing sector in the State and eight agri-processing projects have been sanctioned this year.

Purushothaman Ravichan-dran, Chairman, Agriculture and Food Processing Sub-committee, CII (SR) and President, Danfoss India, highlighted the shift taking place in agriculture today – moving from production-driven agriculture to customer-driven agriculture, among other aspects. He also spoke about the importance of the fusion that takes place between technology and farmers.

Baiju Kurup, Senior General Manager, Nabard, while speaking about land records digitisation, pointed out how it will make credit-related comforts increasingly more efficient and help credit providing agencies to carry out credit transactions online.

Panellists discussed various key aspects related to agriculture, specifically on how to use Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) to bridge the gap between technology and farmers, the supply chain efficiency and logistics currently in place and how to improve the same, the importance of land record digitisation among other aspects of the ecosystem.