Pilot project launched in Chittoor to empower farmers with digital technology

The first batch of farmers completing the ‘Skill Up Chittoor’ training programme, at a Rythu Seva Kendra in Pulicharla in Chittoor district.

‘Skill Up Chittoor’, the new initiative launched in Chittoor district, aimed at providing digital training to farmers to enhance their knowledge on the changing scenario of farming and agriculture practices. It’s a pilot project launched in the Chittoor district, by the State government.

This initiative, supervised by District Collector Sumit Kumar is envisaged to equip farmers with the knowledge about the latest technologies available from lab to land, and to leverage smartphones to obtain vital information regarding the agriculture patterns, market prices, and digital transactions.

Speaking to The Hindu, Collector Sumit Kumar said that with the fast-changing agriculture scenario, technology has become one of the most important components of farming. “By imparting the required training to the farmers on Skill Up Chittoor, we intend to make the farmers go in for optimum use of mobile apps to equip themselves with a sea of information, particularly to track weather conditions, market trends, and crop management techniques. This would also reduce their dependency on middlemen,” the Collector said.

“Many farmers own smartphones, but very few use them for productive purposes connected to their profession. This project wants to bring a complete change by teaching the farmers to access real-time market prices, conduct online transactions, and gain technical insights into farming,” he added.

Chittoor has about 1.6 lakh farmers cultivating in more than 3.3 lakh acres, agriculture, horticulture, and sericulture. There are as many as 502 Rythu Seva Kendras (RSKs), which work as full-fledged training centres for the new scheme.

For the effective grounding of the project, the district administration has deployed eight master trainers to educate farmers, who had already completed the training sessions across the RSKs from March 7 to March 15, covering 500 farmers in the first phase. The next phase is programmed to cover about 15,000 farmers.

The initiative will be taken up as a three-tier model. “First, master trainers will educate RSK in-charges and select farmers. Secondly, each of the in-charges will cover 30 farmers, and the third is to prompt the trained farmers to spread digital knowledge within their communities. “The training sessions already trained the farmers to use digital payment platforms like UPI, browse agricultural apps such as Agri Central, Plantix, and NPSS, and leverage YouTube for agricultural tutorials,” a senior official of the Agriculture Department said.

To register effective results and reach, the district administration announced that top trainers and RSKs will receive cash prizes of ₹20,000, ₹12,000, and ₹8,000. The officials said that the announcement has worked out well among the farmers.

R. Srinivasulu, a groundnut farmer, observed that earlier he had to depend on middlemen for market rates. “Now, I can check the prices on my mobile and establish direct contact with the clientele,” he said. P. Lakshmi, a dairy farmer, said that after learning the use of UPI payments, she found the transactions easier and safe.