3. Most products from this sector provides raw materials for other industries.
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5. These sectors provide employment to 60% of the country’s total population.
6. About 43% of the country’s total geographical area is used for agricultural purposes.
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8. Thepresent state of AGRICULTURE IN INDIA The agricultural sector in India is currently passing through a difficult phase. India is moving towards an agricultural emergency due to lack of attention, insufficient land reforms, defective land management, non-providing of fair prices to farmers for their crops, inadequate investment in irrigational and agricultural infrastructure in India, etc. India’s food production and productivity is declining while its food consumption is increasing.
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10. India’s food production and productivity can be increased by an effective use of IT for agricultural purposes.
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12. contd… IT can initiate new agriculture and rural business such as e-commerce, real estate business for satellite offices, rural tourism, etc. IT can improve farm management and farming technologies by efficient farm management. Hence, IT can take an important and key role for industrialization of farming or farm business enterprises, combining the above role.
13. IT for Agriculture production and Marketing: IT is playing an important and vital role in agricultural production and marketing. In order to take the real status of agricultural production and marketing, there is an urgent need to develop the following items: Farmers’ crop database should be managed. The database includes the kinds of crops, the size of cultivated area, time of harvest and yield. Crops information service should be created. Production techniques and information inquiry system should be created.
14. IT Vision 2020: Department of Agriculture & corporation (DAC) has formulated IT vision 2020. This vision inter-alia envisages that: a) Information relating to agriculture sector would be available to the ultimate users – the farmers - for optimizing their productivity and income; b) Extension and advisory services making use of information technology would be available to the farmers on round the clock basis; c) The tools for information technology will provide networking of agriculture sector not only in the country but also globally
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16. Further, power and electricity also remains a major problem for Indian farmers and alternative means of power like solar energy panels, regulated and optimised by ICT, can be a blessing for them.
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18. As far as initiatives for e-agriculture in India are concerned, they have shared their research works and suggestions with national and international community.
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20. The area of operation of AFPOH covers segments like agriculture, health, banking, finance and insurance, education, rural infrastructure development, power, etc.
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22. AFPOH intends to provide a ‘voice’ to the marginalised and deprived segment so that national and international communities can coordinate and collaborate their empowerment initiatives.
32. Cond… In the post WTO regime, it is suggested that it is useful to focus more on some agricultural products to maintain an unquestionable competitive advantage for exports. This will call for urgent measures to introduce state of the art technologies such as remote sensing, geographical information systems (GIS), bio-engineering, etc. India has made rapid strides in satellite technologies.