PRECISION FARMING DEVELOPMENT CENTERS IN INDIA

The Precision Farming Development Centers (PFDC) will play a leading role in the development of regionally differentiated technology validation and dissemination. The PFDCs are preset existing in 17 Location in the country which are mostly in the SAUs, ICAR Institute and IIT, Kharagpur. On account of their experience in conducting applied research on plasticulture application, they have the expertise in terms of manpower and equipment. The PFDCs will be equipped further with the necessary hardware and software needed for generating information on precision farming techniques in the farmers field. Five of the PFDCs viz.

These institutes will be equipped to take up research and development works on Precision Farming. The CEPFs would function as mother centres for providing technical support to other PFDCs located in the region. The ultimate goal will be make available all the needed information to the farmers so that they are in a position to apply the necessary inputs. Other organizations like ICAR Institutes and Institutes in the private sector will also be involved in technology development. For this purpose financial assistance would be provided to the PFDCs on project basis.

Some important PFDCs in India

1. IARI, New Delhi,
2. University of Agriculture Sciences, Bangalore,
3. Gujarat Agriculture University, Navsari
4. Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur and
5. Central Institute of Sub-tropical Horticulture (CISH), Lucknow.

These are the Centers for excellence for Precision Farming (CEPF).

STEPS TO BE TAKEN FOR IMPLEMENTING PF IN INDIA:

In the present existent situation, the potential of precision agriculture in India is limited by the lack of appropriate measurement and analysis techniques for agronomically important factors (National Research Council, 1997). High accuracy sensing and data management tools must be developed and validated to support both research and production. The limitation in data quality/availability has become a major obstacle in the demonstration and adoption of the precision technologies. The adoption of precision agriculture needs combined efforts on behalf of scientists, farmers and the government. The following methodology could be adopted in order to operationalise precision farming in the country.

 

1. Creation of multidisciplinary teams involving agricultural scientists in various fields, engineers, manufacturers and economists to study the overall scope of precision agriculture.

2. Formation of farmer's co-operatives since many of the precision agriculture tools are costly (GIS, GPS, RS, etc.).

3. Government legislation restraining farmers using indiscriminate farm inputs and thereby causing ecological/environmental imbalance would induce the farmer to go for alternative approach.

4. Pilot study should be conducted on farmer's field to show the results of precision agriculture implementation.

5. Creating awareness amongst farmers about consequences of applying imbalanced doses of farm inputs like irrigation, fertilizers, insecticides and pesticides.