Agriculture Secretary chairs meeting of Technical Advisory Committee on transforming MNCFC as Centre of excellence in Geo Spatial Technology
The government
under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has always been
emphasizing on use of technology for the benefit of Agriculture sector and
Farmers. The Central Government has taken several initiatives towards promoting
Digital Agriculture. Agriculture Ministry setup a specialized organization ‘Mahalanobis National Crop Forecast Centre (MNCFC)’ in 2012 as an
attached Office of DA&FW, focusing on enhancing satellite remote sensing
and GIS technologies in crop estimation. Considering the recent advancements in
the geospatial technology, DA&FW has recognized the need to scale up the
technology solutions in agriculture decision support.
In this direction, the first meeting of Technical
Advisory Committee for strengthening and transforming MNCFC into a Centre of
excellence in the field of geospatial technology applications, was held in New
Delhi under the chairmanship of Manoj Ahuja, Secretary, DA&FW. Experts from
ISRO Centres, International Rice Research Institute, National Institute of
Advanced Studies and senior officials from DA&FW participated in the
meeting.
Ahuja highlighted the need to scale up utilization of satellites,
drones, smart phones, AI/ML techniques to develop scientific information
products and services for informed decision making by multiple stakeholders in
the agriculture sector.
Dr Shailesh Naik Director National Institute of Advanced
Studies, Bengaluru and former Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences, praised
the current initiative of upgrading the MNCFC as a major technology hub and
advised to take part in global initiatives on crop surveillance.
After deliberations, major recommendation of the
committee included adoption of new technologies and data products, utilization
of recently launched Indian microwave satellite RISAT- 1Adata, use
of bio-physical products, better use of AI & ML techniques for automated
crop mapping, crop health monitoring and crop yield estimation, collaborations
with national, international, private and Start-up organizations. The Committee
also discussed developing National framework at MNCFC for all scalable technology
solutions to standardize the methodologies and to enable mainstreaming of these
solutions into the decision making processes. The major themes for developing
such national initiatives include Crop surveillance and estimations, Disaster
risk reduction in Agriculture, Farmer centric services – weather, pest/disease
surveillance advisory, Nutrient management advisory and Agro-forestry decision
support and Environment & Energy.
It was emphasized by Additional Secretary, Abhilaksh
Likhi, that satellite based assessments be extended to Horticulture sector by
pooling the data and expertise currently available in the existing projects and
schemes in the Ministry and ICAR.
JS (Digital
Agriculture), Pramod Kumar
Meherda, expressed the hope that with the support of technology agencies like
ISRO, MNCFC would be fully geared up to reap all possible benefits of digital technologies in a
holistic manner in Agriculture sector.