INDIA: Use of ICTs in agriculture... (fwd)

["Frederick Noronha (FN)" <fred@bytesforall.org>]

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FN

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Message: 2
   Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2003 04:15:52 -0000
   From: "punjabsingh2k" <jsandha@vsnl.net>
Subject: Re: Use of ICTs in Agriculture

Hello Friends,

I have been working on Rural Development through ICT. After working 
in Agricultural Tractors R&D after my Masters in Agril Engg, and 
several years in IT deployment, I decided to try to stitch the two 
fields together. So came the project called Jagriti (www.jagriti.com). 

We all in developing countries face simlar problems:
1. Low penetration of technologies.
2. Wide digital or even lifestyle divide.
3. Large young rural educated youth .... un- or under-employed.
4. Inability to invest in costly ventures.

Jagriti fitted itself to these issues thus:

1. Linux based network... no licensing issues, low machine configs 
required.
2. Low investment ( fits into the limits of PMRY- Prime Ministers 
Rozgar Yojna)
3. Focus on agricultural linkages. 
4. Focus on agricultural practices ( fertiliser Dose 
recommendation ... a very simple Linear Programming idea).

To me what needs to be included in curricula is such that the student 
is trained to see...

1. How to put the research on a interactive mass media
2. Assesment of social needs, then model them to ICT
3. Lots of case studies.

All these are multidisciplinary fields, what could be done was that 
the college might consider having a series of case studies on success 
stories in application of ICT's in Agriculture and the like..

Over to you.

Regds

J.S. sandha



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