ICT enabled Information Systems for Agricultural Development in India: Status, Issues and Future Directions

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ICT enabled Information Systems for Agricultural
Development in India Status, Issues and Future
Directions

• Ajit Maru

16th December 2004 An Invited Presentation
for IAITA Second National Workshop on ICT in
Agriculture and Rural Development at Dhirubhai
Ambani Institute for Information and
Communications Technology (DA-IICT) Gandhinagar
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Outline

• Transformation of Indian Agriculture
• New Models of Agricultural Information Systems
• New Stakeholders to Agricultural Information
  Systems
• Beyond Farmers New clients for agricultural
  information
• Need for New Institutions, Institutional
  Structures and Processes
• Conclusions

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Transformation of Indian Agriculture

• After attaining self sufficiency, the new
  challenge is to participate effectively in the
  highly competitive global agricultural markets.

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Ongoing Transformation of Indian Agriculture
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Transformation of Indian Agriculture

• Being competitive globally requires information
  and new knowledge from beyond the conventional
  boundaries of local communities and markets.

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Transformation of Indian Agriculture

• During the green revolution public sector
  extension met almost all the information needs of
  farmers.
• Most information needed was of local relevance
  and technological in nature.

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Transformation of Indian Agriculture

• For the emerging challenge of market oriented
  agriculture, existing agricultural extension
  systems cannot meet the demands for new
  information.
• New agricultural information systems are now
  needed to satisfy the emerging demands from
  agricultural communities and agri-business.

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New Models of Agricultural Information Systems

• New ICTs, especially Cellular Telephony and the
  Internet, central to providing connectivity for
  new generation of Agricultural Information
  Systems.
• As learned, when use of radio and television was
  introduced for agricultural extension, use of any
  new ICT brings forth new models of agricultural
  information systems.

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New Models of Agricultural Information Systems

• New Models of Agricultural Information Systems,
  in addition to technology, will have to
  accommodate social, economic and political
  complexities to meet the demands of agricultural
  communities for information.

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New Models of Agricultural Information Systems

• Appropriate models that make effective use of
  ICTs to generate, deliver and enable use of
  information by agricultural communities in India
  are lacking.

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New Models of Agricultural Information Systems

• Most proof of concept applications in
  providing agricultural information have been
  technology centric and have had to struggle with
  issues of financial and social sustainability,
  scalability beyond a few villages or replication
  elsewhere.

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New Models of Agricultural Information Systems

• Development of appropriate models of
  agricultural information systems will need to
  consider
• Who are the stakeholders to the new
  agricultural information systems?
• Who are clients of these information systems?
• What are the information needs of the clients?
• What are environmental (social, economic and
  political) constraints to the development of
  these new information systems?
• What new Institutions, Institutional structures
  and processes are needed to develop and manage
  effectively and efficiently the new agricultural
  information systems?

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Current Information Flow in Agricultural
Research and Extension Organizations (NARS)
Farmers
Research Manager
Extension Support
Researcher
NARO
Stakeholders
Policy Makers
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New Stakeholders to Agricultural Information
Systems

• Onus of agricultural innovation and
  transformation shifting from the public sector
  National Agricultural Research System (NARS) to
  the Agricultural Commodity Market Chain bringing
  new stakeholders to agricultural information
  systems.
• New Stakeholders now include, in addition to the
  public sector NARS, the private sector, the small
  rural entrepreneur, agricultural service
  providers, the community sector and civil society
  organizations.

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Information Flows in an Agricultural Innovation
System
Multiple Sources and Pluralistic Information
Flows
Farmers
Extension Support
Research Manager
Researcher
NARO
Stakeholders
Existing
Policy Makers
Future
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New Stakeholders to Agricultural Information
Systems

• Key issue at the moment in the transformation of
  Indian agriculture is enabling the new
  stakeholders to be a part of the Agricultural
  Innovation System
• The need is to create partnerships between the
  public sector NARS and the new stakeholders in
  the private and community sectors.
• ITC E-Chaupal, Tata Kisan, Nagarjuna Fertilizers
  and Warna initiatives indicate a new trend
  towards these partnerships.

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New Stakeholders to Agricultural Information
Systems

• Key question, who will financially contribute to
  the development of these new Agricultural
  Information Systems?
• Funding of the public sector NARS diminishing
• Corporate sector unwilling to invest in what is
  considered public good
• Policy makers must recognize that providing
  agricultural information will continue to remain
  a public sector service and will require public
  investment.

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Beyond Farmers New Clients for Agricultural
Information

• Many new stakeholders also new clients for
  agricultural information
• New clients bring new information needs
• Even information needs of farmers are changing
  from technological information to that which
  enables effective participation in markets
• Existing agricultural extension systems, even if
  automated through use of ICTs, will not be
  sustainable if they are not demand responsive

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Beyond Farmers New Clients for Agricultural
Information

• Information needs of many new clients and means
  to satisfy them have not even been considered
  because most agricultural information systems in
  the public sector are planned to be farmer
  centric
• ISAP, Agriwatch and ITC E-Chaupals are attempts
  to satisfy the needs of agribusiness market
  players

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Environmental constraints

• Illiteracy an overriding constraint in use of new
  ICT enabled Agricultural Information Systems
• Lack of empowerment of women, youth and the
  economically weak also a major constraint
• Weak and even dysfunctional Research-Extension-Far
  mer linkages
• Lack of purchasing power for information of small
  and marginal farmers
• Political neglect of agriculture

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Environmental constraints

• Need for information cooperatives for small and
  marginal farmers
• Need for NGOs, who has led innovation in
  information systems for rural development, to
  focus on sustainability and scalability of rural
  information systems including for agriculture

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New Institutions, Institutional Structures and
Processes

• Information needs of members of agricultural
  commodity chains fall into a continuum.
• Not related to only 1 commodity but also to
  interrelations between commodities e.g. tomatoes
  and tamarind
• Information needs range across geographical and
  eco-regional distributions

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New Institutions, Institutional Structures and
Processes

• There are pluralistic information flows within
  and across users which calls for significant
  integration of information to satisfy needs of a
  variety of users
• Integration of information systems may require
  change in constitutional provisions for
  agriculture being a State subject to being on
  Concurrent list

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New Institutions, Institutional Structures and
Processes

• Satisfying new information needs of a variety of
  users also implies greater integration of the
  NARS and coordination of its information system.
• Technologies, such as data warehousing and use of
  distributed databases exist but the NARS will
  need to be restructured to collaborate more in
  sharing and exchanging information with private
  and community sectors
• New processes to manage information and its flow
  across the NARS and the Agricultural Innovation
  System will be needed

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A Generic Framework to enable ICT use in
Agricultural Information Systems
Information And Knowledge Intermediaries
Clients And User Communities
Information Bus
Information Platform
ARD Information Organization
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A Generic Framework to enable ICT use in
Agricultural Information Systems
Information And Knowledge Intermediaries
Capacity development to access and
use Information and knowledge
Advocacy and New Technologies for enabling access
to information In Agricultural and Rural
Communities
Radio TV Cellular Telephones Websites E-Mail lists
Clients And User Communities
Information Bus
Information Platform
Capacity development to enable learning in
communities
ARD Information Organization
Integrating ICM and ICT in work and Business
process of ARD organizations through appropriate
policies, strategies, resources allocation,
capacity development, organizational structures
and processes
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Community Mobilization
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Conclusions

• Development of ICT enabled Agricultural
  Information Systems in India follows the Stages
  theory
• Infrastructure
• Operationalization
• Coordination and Control
• Effective Use

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Stages of ICT Implementation
Current Stage for India
Cost of ICT Implementation
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Conclusions

• ICTs transforming agriculture extension and
  agricultural extension is transforming use and
  application of ICTs.
• New and innovative uses of ICTs in agricultural
  extension are emerging.

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Conclusions

• Key to success of ICT enabled information
  systems in India is the ability to generate and
  disseminate relevant and useful content in time
  to users and building capacity in user
  communities to use information to learn to
  articulate needs and negotiate action with
  stakeholders to their development.

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Conclusions

• Current Indian Institutions, many of them in
  the public sector, are extremely weak in
  generating, managing and disseminating digital
  content and in their ability to mobilize
  communities.
• A content centric strategy with pluralistic flow
  of information to all users is required for the
  emerging models of Agricultural Information
  Systems.

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Conclusions

• The new direction is towards partnerships and
  collaborative arrangements between Public,
  Private and Community organizations.
• Existing Institutions within each sector will
  need change to work in partnerships and through
  collaboration.

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Conclusions

• The transformation of agricultural information
  systems demands new Institutions, Policy and
  Structural changes in existing Institutions that
  generate manage and disseminate agricultural
  information.

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Conclusions

• Significant efforts are needed to be made to
  embed ICT in organizations that manage and
  process agricultural information.
• There is an urgent need to initiate mechanisms
  and processes to integrate information management
  and ICT at various levels including in generating
  content and developing and using applications and
  providing services.

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Conclusions

• There are trends to indicate that the
  transformation of agricultural information
  systems in India is occurring.
• To accelerate this process, there is an urgent
  need for a policy dialogue among stakeholders
  that would lead to development of appropriate
  strategies for investment, both in terms of
  finance and capacity, to rapidly evolve and
  implement new models for Agricultural Information
  Systems.
• This is vital for the transformation of
  agriculture in India.

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Thank You