Agri hotline for Manipur farmers
Imphal Free Press
July 13, 2012
Agri hotline for Manipur farmers
The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, CDAC, Mumbai and Department of Agriculture, Manipur today launched the Intelligent Advisory System for Farmers, IASF an advisory system for answering queries related to farming activities and IASF mobile service at the conference hall of the Directorate of Agriculture.
The inaugural function was attended by Commissioner Agriculture, Letkhogin Haokip, Director Agriculture, L Palendro Singh, Executive Director, CDAC, Mumbai Dr Zia Saquib and OSD, Dept of IT, N Deben as chief guest, president and guests of honour respectively.
Mobile handsets have become an important part in the society today, even the rural farmers have access to it, said N Deben before adding that the launch of the IASF mobile service will help the farmers tremendously.
He lauded the Agriculture department for taking up such steps of providing mobile service of the IASF.
Zia Saquib said, “Manipur is the first state to launch such a mobile service and has become the torch bearer in the country”.
He continued that there are several farmers in the state who are experts in the field, now the agriculture department should use them to further spread their knowledge to the other farmers.
Letkhogin said it has taken a big effort on the part of the department to launch such services.
Through this service, the farmers of the state will be able to cull information on any queries related to agriculture, he continued.
The service will provide tremendous help to the farmers, he added.
The government has already provided several schemes like ATMA, RKVY, national Food Security Mission etc with the sole objective of helping the farmers and improve food production. With the launching of the mobile service today, the farmers will be able to improve their food production more, he continued.
However if the farmers fail to improve their production even after such steps are provided by the government it would be really unfortunate, he added.
In his speech, Palendro said in order to spread awareness amongst the farmers of the state on the IASF website, several booklets and brochures were distributed and access points will be opened at seven locations in the state.
He continued that the farmers’ inability to understand the correct use of insecticides had wasted production in the past, however with the launching of the website and the mobile service, the farmers can avail of experts’ view on such issues.
He lamented that the farmers’ had neglected several awareness programmes organized by the department in the past which has only dampen production in the state.