Ever since man started growing crops, he felt the need for information. He needed to know about the soil, the weather condition, the types of crops that gives the best yield in a particular soil, getting hold of improved quality seeds and fertilizers, how to protect the crops from pests and insects. The farmers might be growing the same crops in their field for ages but the soil and the weather conditions are dynamic. Updated information on the change in weather conditions and soil pattern aids in driving advanced preventive measures and mitigate the loss to the minimum possible extent. In spite of years of industrialization, agriculture still provides majority of the subsistence for the poor mass. According to the World Bank 2008 report, agriculture still provides around four times more income opportunities to the poor than any other sector. (indiagoverance.gov.in)
Lately, agriculture is being challenged by the growing global population which is estimated to touch the 9 billion mark by 2050. The inclusion of the latest technologies is thus obligatory for the overall development of agriculture. The inclusion of video technology into agricultural can be instrumental in easy acquisition of knowledge and information, reduced price for the consumers through efficient waste and supply chain management.
The driving factors of video technology into the agriculture sector
The emergence of smart phones
The development of the telecommunication infrastructure has helped smart phones to penetrate into nearly 90% of the household in all developing countries. The higher competitions among the manufacturers and the service providers made the prices of the smart phones drop considerably and thus make way into the rural domiciliary. The smart phones have helped the farmers and the other stakeholders in the agricultural domain have easy access to relevant information available over the internet. The video tutorials about the taking care of crops, pest controls methodologies are made handy in an easy to comprehend language. They can directly communicate with the remote experts to get more information on improved productivity.
Pervasiveness of connectivity
Video technology has become increasingly widespread and both private and public sectors are leveraging the benefit of the technology to increase their productivity. PeopleLink has made video collaboration in agriculture industry, enter the rural forum through glitch free connectivity, overlooking faltering bandwidth. The easy and smooth connectivity has undoubtedly increased the acceptance of video as one of the desired medium of remote communication in the agricultural sector.
The video technology benefits in the agricultural domain
- Video technology invokes increased production, better efficiency and sustainability for small scale farmers.
- The farmers can have remote expert advice through video conference with required help from the village panchayat to get more information on pest control, improving soil texture, the weather updates, choosing and buying seeds to ensure higher productivity.
- Video can provide the platform to know about the better markets and the government schemes in action for the farmer and agricultural upliftment.
- Video can be the best platform for grievance redressal and collaboration with the government representatives, responsible to look into the well-being of the farmers.
- According to the UN, social isolation is one of the reasons for rising numbers of farmer suicides, especially in India. Face-to-face video collaboration can help the in reducing the social isolation and geographical remoteness.They can remotely associate to discuss each others problems and provide the most viable solutions for the same.
- Video banking is another benefit that farmers can utilize. Many Indian villages are still unbanked. The video banking technology can help in connecting banks to the farmers or agricultural laborers. The farmers and agricultural workers can understand better utilization of the finance, get agricultural loans and resolves all their banking related queries by directly asking the representative who explains them in their native language. This will make banking easier and more convincing for the farmers and thus will have better acceptance.
- Video collaboration is very likely to bring in loads of benefits to the agricultural sector. PeopleLink is trying to revolutionize the agricultural domain with innovative finds that can make remote collaboration between related stakeholders easier, effective and affordable. Contact us to know about the innovations that we propose for the agricultural sector.