Context

• For the first time, Agriculture and Revenue Departments of Andhra Pradesh has jointly taken up e-Cropping, which will be useful to farmers.

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• It is an Android application launched with a local name called e-Panta, which is designed to know the ground reality of the crop details and to analyze the crop pattern across the state and to capture the standing crop in the state.
• Photographs as evidence in the case of crop damage and insurance are also available as the arable land in the state has been captured in latitude and longitude along with subdivision and occupancy.
• All field officers are trained to capture the crop details in the existing agricultural fields using tabs and to upload the crop details to the server for every crop season.
• The features include an online transfer of crop details to Webland (Land record management website), evidence in the case of crop damage for insurance, evidence for crop loans by banks, crop pattern and water tax demand analysis, and GPS location of each land parcel across the state. The mobile app covers land use and the entire Pattadar’s history of land cover.

Objectives of e-cropping:

• Sharing of agricultural information with the farmers through digitalization.
• To eradicate corruption.
• To maintain accuracy through photographs with Geo-tagging
• To create Biometric authentication for genuine users.
• To create a robust MIS system through Data analytics and Powerful Business Intelligence for various analysis reports.
  
  

  E-Technology in the Aid of Farmers by the Government of India Small Farmers’ Agri-Business Consortium (SFAC): SFAC is an exclusive Society focused on increasing incomes of small and marginal farmers through aggregation and development of agribusiness. SFAC offers Schemes like Equity Grant and Credit Guarantee Fund Scheme to FPCs to improve the availability of working capital and the development of business activities. Kisan Sabha App: The primary objective of Kisan Sabha is to connect farmers to the supply chain and freight transportation management system. Kisan Rath Mobile App: It will facilitate farmers and traders to identify suitable transport facilities for the movement of farm produce during coronavirus lockdown. The App will allow transportation of farm produce from farm gate to mandi and from one to another mandi. It will ensure seamless supply linkages between farmers, FPOs, APMC mandis, and intra-state and inter-state buyers. National Agriculture Market (eNAM): It is a pan-India electronic trading portal which networks the existing APMC mandis to create a unified national market for agricultural commodities. Small Farmers Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC) is the lead agency for implementing eNAM under the aegis of the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Government of India.