The world’s biggest fertiliser cooperative, Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Limited (IFFCO) and Prasar Bharati on Monday signed an MoU to broadcast and promote new agriculture technology and innovations. The agreement was signed at a program organised in Prithvi Bhavan, New Delhi.
DD Kisan will broadcast various innovative techniques being adopted in the agriculture field in easy language through 30 minutes program series for the benefit of farmers. IFFCO’s innovations will be shared with farmers in easy language over 25 episodes. DD Kisan is an Indian agriculture 24-hour television channel, which is owned by Doordarshan. Doordarshan is an autonomous public service broadcaster founded by the Government of India, owned by the Broadcasting Ministry of India and one of Prasar Bharati’s two divisions.
To make the farmers Atmanirbhar (self-reliant), it is essential for new agriculture techniques and their implementation to be explained to the farmers. The new broadcast initiative has been created to help disseminate such technology-based information to all farmers. This transfer of knowledge and information will greatly help achieve the target of doubling the income of farmers by 2022.
The agreement will aid in pushing out the innovations of scientists done in a lab and the experiment conducted by farmers in the field which will help the entire sector develop. The information will be shared with the farmers in an easy-to-understand language. These programs will also be broadcast through a digital medium so that all farmers can benefit from the initiative.
As an example, IFFCO has created a nanotechnology-based urea alternative that could significantly help farmers. The agency was delighted that this innovation that could benefit farmers would now be broadcast to a wider audience.
Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India K. Vijay Raghavan opined that the initiative as a historic collaboration for the betterment of farmers. IFFCO has innovative technology for the farmers and Doordarshan has a vast network across the country. The vast network of DD will help in explaining agriculture innovations to the farmers in easy language which will help them immensely.
The Department of Fertilizers has been ranked 2nd among the 16 Economic Ministries / Departments and 3rd out of the 65 Ministries / Departments with a score 4.11 on a scale of 5 on Data Governance Quality Index (DGQI).
A survey conducted by Development Monitoring and Evaluation Office (DMEO), Niti Ayog to assess different Ministries /Departments’ performance on the implementation of Central Sector Schemes (CS) and Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS). The survey was initiated to assess data preparedness of Ministries / Departments on a standardised framework to drive healthy competition among them and promote cooperative peer learning from best practices.
In this survey, an online questionnaire was prepared under six major themes of DGQI: Data Generation; Data Quality; Use of Technology; Data Analysis, Use and Dissemination; Data Security and HR Capacity and Case Studies.
Speaking about the initiative Chemicals and Fertilizers Minister Shri DV Sadananda Gowda said, “The effort of DMEO, Niti Aayog to bring out such a report card of the Ministries / Departments is highly appreciable. It will immensely help improve the implementation framework of government policies, schemes and programmes to achieve the desired goals.”
