AGROCLOUD ANDMARGAO: Deputy Chief Minister Vijai Sardesai, who also holds the Agriculture portfolio, on Monday said his idea of developing an Agricloud -- a digital platform for management of entire agrarian activities in the state -- would be tendered in the next fortnight.
ITS FEATURES
>> Agricloud is a platform that will organise entire agriculture activity in Goa with a three-way interface
>> It will allow Agri department to register farmers and keep track of all subsidies and inputs provided
>> It will also allow farmers to make informed decisions through customized information related to their needs
Speaking at the National Conference of the All India Agricultural Marketing Board Federation currently underway at the Royal Orchid Hotel in Utorda, Sardesai said all formalities for tendering the work have been cleared including a go-ahead from the IT Department.
“Agricloud is a platform that will organise the entire agriculture activity in the state with a three-way interface that will allow the department to register farmers and keep track of all subsidies and inputs provided. It will also allow these farmers to make informed decisions through customized information related to their needs,” he said.
He further said that farmers could access a variety of informative modules including agricultural advisory, weather, market prices, agriculture information library in the form of text, imagery, audio and videos in the selected language at profiling stage. “It will eventually also create an e-commerce platform to allow the farmers to sell their produce directly to customers,” he said, adding that digital intervention in the agriculture sector will help in ensuring and realizing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of doubling farmers income by 2022.
Sardesai stressed on the need for providing organic and safe food to the people of Goa by encouraging the farmers to go organic. “If this happens, the government would create a brand Goa to market local produce and handicrafts through standardization and high quality sale of product,” the deputy chief minister said, while expressing his commitment to provide better procurement centres with better logistics and also including cold chain to maintain quality of the produce so as to provide farmers better profitability and providing Goans safer food.
He also shared his idea of wanting to use digital technology in providing an e-commerce platform to the local farmers to allow direct sale of products from farm to kitchen.
Around 50 delegates from across the country are participating in the three-day national conference organised by the National Council of State Agricultural Marketing Boards (Cosams) and the Goa State Agricultural Marketing Board to sensitize the states to implement the newly launched scheme on agricultural marketing infrastructure.
