As the government welcomes modern tech-based agricultural solutions, including use of Kisan drones, Nano-technology based fertilizers, digitization of land records, and more to keep India’s agricultural growth trajectory robust, India has shifted to practices of what can be called ‘Smart Agriculture’ which has begun to transform the lives of Indian farmers.
The word SMART, when combined with ‘Agriculture’, deciphers a plethora of actions and practices that must be well adapted to by all the stakeholders of the agricultural sector, be it government, institutions, producers, sellers and every individual linked to the Agro-chain. One could smartly break the acronym (SMART) into Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-based, which are key factors in deciding the fate of Agriculture and allied sectors.
By identifying the precise new technologies and working to acquire them for its agricultural requirements, India is being ‘Specific’. By building capacity and infrastructure to come up the farm, production and land records and create tools and schemes to make new ones, it is being ‘Measurable’. It has been ‘Attainable’ by ensuring and celebrating exports growth, record production, record organic exports growth, maintaining satisfying MSPs, timely and easy release of funds under various schemes like Kisan Samman Nidhi & others through DBT, opening up of 44.23 cr Jan Dhan Accounts, etc. India is also being ‘Relevant’ as it looks forward to solutions facilitating use of Kisan drones and convergence of AI & machine learning, blockchain technology, remote sensing-based tools and technologies with Agriculture. And all this is being done with a ‘Time-based’ approach, meeting deadlines.
Terming it as the future, PM Narendra Modi addressed a webinar on ‘Smart Agriculture’ calling on policymakers and stakeholders to begin the execution of the provisions discussed in the budget 2022-23 for the agriculture sector. PM Modi laid out seven ways which hold the potential to turn Indian agriculture smart enough. These include natural farming, use of modern technologies, Mission Oil Palm to reduce our dependence on import of edible oils, new logistical facilities for transportation of food-grains and other farm products, agriculture waste management, agriculture research and use of post offices in providing banking services to the farmers.
Over the past six years, farm outputs have seen an unprecedented growth registering new records, following the continuous impetus from the government through different plans. This oscillates in tandem with the goals that have been defined by it to double farmers’ income by 2022-23, promote farmers welfare and bring parity between earnings of farmers and those working in non-agricultural professions. The food grain production rose to 298 million tonnes in 2019-20, 311 million tonnes in 2020-21 and estimated 316 million tonnes in 2021-22. However, it vacillated before 2016-17, hovering between 245 million tonnes and 265 million tonnes.
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