M.F.M. Rizwan | Assistant Director of Agriculture (Development) National Agriculture Information & Communication Centre (NAICC) | Department of Agriculture

1. Reshaping the Future ofAgriculture
through ICT
M.F.M. Rizwan|AssistantDirectorof Agriculture(Development)
NationalAgricultureInformation& Communication Centre(NAICC)| DepartmentofAgriculture
SriLankan Perspective

2. Contents
 Challenges in Agriculture Sector
 E-agriculture / ICT Solutions
 Trends in ICT Usage
 Mobile Apps
 Agriculture 4.0
2

3. Challenges in Agriculture Sector (Farmer)
3
 Access to advisory services & agriculture information
 Agriculture Marketing
 Field problems eg. Pest, soil/fertilizer, water/ irrigation
 Food safety & Quality assurance of agriculture produces
 Farmer welfare, Subsidies & Agriculture insurance
 Agriculture : Low income business venture
 Poor adoption of modern technologies by farmers
 Climate change and environmental
 Youth distracted from Agriculture
 Low adoption of modern ICTs in Research & Extension

4. Agriculture Research & Extension Services
4
Research Agri. Extension Farmer
Research & Development
New Technologies
Dissemination of
New Technologies
ICT for Agriculture / E-agriculture Solutions as bridging the
information gap of Famers

5. 2003
of information from dawn of Civilization to
5 Exabytes

6. every 2 days!
2003
of information from dawn of Civilization to
5 Exabytes
Now we produce
that much information

7. Developed with the participation of all the stakeholders in agriculture

8. ICT for Agriculture (E-agriculture)
Source: FAO-ITU E-agriculture Strategy Guide

9. Status of
ICT for Agriculture Initiatives
9

10. Status of ICT for Agriculture Initiatives
Websites as Information Source
10

11. Department of Agriculture – www.doa.gov.lk
 Simple design and user-friendly website / e-Services

12. WikiGoviya – www.goviya.lk
 Interactive Website
 Multimedia supported learning material - Self learning tool
 Integration Text, photos, illustrations, audio, video and animations
 Local languages – Sinhalese Tamil & English
 E-Swabhimani, Manthan Award South Asia, World Summit Award
 Consist of
• Agriculture Wikipedia
• E-Learning on crop technology
• Discussion Forum
• Agriculture classified
• E-Magazine

13. Agriculture Portal – www.krushilanka.lk
 Different institutions are
responsible for Agriculture
 DOA
 DAPH
 EDOA
 CRI / TRI / SRI
 The Portal provides single
window for finding those
information

14. Biodiversity for Food & Nutrition Project
www.bfnsrilanka.org
 securing national food security
through agro-biodiversity
 Policy establishment and
strengthening regulatory frameworks
 United Nations Environment
Programme - UNEP & Food and
Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations - FAO

15. Status of ICT for Agriculture Initiatives
Radio & TV Programmes
15

16. Agriculture Videos on National TV
 Telecasted weekly / monthly
 Agriculture technology / Farmer success story
 Uploaded to YouTube , Vimeo to DOA website

17. Agriculture Radio Programmes
 Broadcasted on daily basis
 Agriculture Community Radio Stations:
 Local language : Sinhalese & Tamil
 Associated with National / Regional Radio Channels

18. Online Agriculture Radio
 Recorded and real time broadcasting / Web streaming on
www.krushiradio.lk
 Listeners are Linked with SMSs
 Proposed a separate frequency (FM or AM/MW)

19. Status of ICT for Agriculture Initiatives
1920 Agriculture Advisory Service
19

20. 1920 Agriculture Advisory Service (Call Centre)
 Food Crops, Coconut & Spice Crops
 20 call centre agents
 Calls: Recorded in a database
 Krushi SMS service
 Supported during epidemics
 Skype video calls
 Database for KM
 WhatsApp / Viber

21. Status of ICT for Agriculture Initiatives
Use of Social Media
21

22. YouTube Channel for DoA
404 Videos / 12.4K subscribers

23. Krushi TV YouTube Channel
684 Videos / 24.6K subscribers

24. DOA official Facebook page
 Latest updates  45K+ Likes  Many Discussions

25. 1920 Call Centre - DOA
46K+ Likes

26. Kushi Radio Sinhala Facebook page

27. Kushi Radio Tamil Facebook page

28. Krushi TV : Facebook page
83.5K+ Likes

29. Status of ICT for Agriculture Initiatives
Information Systems
29

30. Crop Forecasting InformationSystem
 Progress Monitoring tool of National Food Production Programme
 Provides the cropproduction forecast / harvesting schedule

31. Crop Forecasting InformationSystem
Decision support mechanism through VegetableEarly Warning System

32. Seed& PlantingMaterialInformationSystem
 ManagementInformation Systems for capturing real-time data on seed & planting
material availability
 Funded by : JICA & SL Govt.

33. Crop SuitabilityRecommendation MIS
 Provides the information on recommended/ suitable crops based on Grama Nladari
Division
 Funded by: SL Govt.

34. SL-GAP Certification System
 Registration of Commercial Farmers
 Certification of Good Agriculture Practices
 Promoting Export oriented agriculture
 Supported with a Mobile App

35. National Spatial Data Initiative
NSDI Initiative by ICT Agency of Sri Lanka

36. E-Phyto System
 Phytosanitary Certificate issuing system
 Department of Agriculture, Australia
 Supported by GoSL

37. Farmer
Soil sample
Laboratory Testing
Alert System
Reports & Recommendations
General / Specific
Centralized Database on
ASC Level Recommendation
Soil Management Information System

38. Trends in ICT Usage
38

39. 39

40. 40

41. 41

42. Status of ICT for Agriculture Initiatives
M-Agriculture Initiatives
42

43. SMS based information dissemination
 Short code 1920
 Three different approach
1. General queries on agriculture
Any queries sent to 1920 will be responded
by Agri. Advisory Team
2. Weather information dissemination
Registered users receive weather updates
3. Linked with Farm Broadcasting
Service Audience
For Aswenna programme:
Type As your_response and send to 1920

44. Online Agriculture Radio on Mobile Phone
 Mobile app available for download with play store

45. Hela Bojun
Mobile app available for download with play store

46. Hela Nutrition
Mobile app available for download with play store

47. Agri Staff Mobile App

48. SL-GAP Mobile App
48

49. Boga Purokathanaya App (Early Warning)

51. Krushi Advisor App
Available for download with play store

52. 52
Krushi Advisor App…

53. Paddy Fertilizer App
53

54. Paddy Fertilizer App
54

55. 600,000+ Registered farmers
• Customized and timely advice
• Advisory through Outbound Voice calls
• Focus on Crop Security and Productivity
• Health and Nutrition advice from Ministry of Health
• Currently serving 20 crop categories (5 more in the pipeline in 2019)

56. GoviMithuru
Mobile app

57. Coconut App
 Coconut Cultivation Board

58. Govipola.lk

59. Welandapola
 Private

60. ICT Enabled Solutions:
Agriculture 4.0
60

61. Industrial Revolution: Industry 4.0
61

62. Revolution of Agriculture
62
 Early 20th Century
 Labour intensive, low productivity
 Primarily subsistence agriculture
 Requires a vast number of small farms
Agriculture
1.0

63. Revolution of Agriculture
63
 Late of 1950, Green Revolution
 Supplemental nitrogen
 Synthetic pesticides & fertilizers
 Specialized machine
Agriculture
2.0

64. Revolution of Agriculture
64
 late 1990
 Precision farming
 Military GPS signal available for public
 Mechanization
Agriculture
3.0

65. Revolution of Agriculture
65
 A new boost in precision agriculture (early 2010)
 Cheap sensors and IoT devices / Automation
 Low cost micro-processor
 High bandwidth cellular communication & cloud based
ICT
Agriculture
4.0

66. What is Agriculture 4.0
66
 The use of modern technologies
 integrated into one system (Inter connected system)
 to link farmers and other stakeholders within the agriculture value
chain from land to consumer
 to improve food & agro-industrial production and delivery
 Utilizers the power of ICTs where information flow freely

67. Agriculture 4.0 : Scope
 Precision Agriculture: application of drone, robotic & artificial
intelligent massively in agriculture
 Smart Agro-industry: Optimize the resource utilization
 Digital Agro-logistic System: reduces the inefficiencies in
agriculture value chain
 Smart E-Commerce System: efficient agriculture marketing
67

68. Agriculture 4.0 : Why
 More Productive: consistent and use time and resources more
efficiently
 Advantages to Farmers: ensures the highest level of return on
investment
 Enables organizations to share information: across the traditional
boundaries
 Environmental Friendly and Sustainable System: efficient use of
resources and minimizes the malpractices
68

69. Agriculture 4.0 : Transformative Shift
Traditional Farming
Traditional SMEs
Traditional Services
Unskilled Labourers
Buy Technologies
69
Smart Farming
Start Ups /
Entrepreneurs
High Value Services
Knowledge Workers
Make Technologies

70. Future Initiatives / Agriculture 4.0
70
 Precision Agriculture
 Smart Farming / IoT (Internet of Things)
 ICT enabled Agriculture Advisory System supported with spatial data
(NSDI)
 Digitalization in Farming
 Smart value chain management
 Agri Nerve Centre
 Sri Lanka E-Agriculture Strategy

71. Precision Agriculture
71

72. Precision Agriculture
72

73. Farmer Empowerment
73

74. Review Revise Adopt

75. Leadership
& Vision
10,000,0
00
75
Success of an ICT initiative…
Infrastructure
Finance
Partnership
Technology
Process
Policies
HR

76. In the future it is not about the
competition of knowledge,
it’s a
competition of creativity,
competition of imagination,
competition of learning,
competition of independent thinking
76
Jack Ma
Alibaba Group

77. M.F.M.Rizwan
Assistant Director ofAgriculture(Development)
NationalAgriculture Information& CommunicationCentre
Department ofAgriculture
Email: rizwan.doa@gmail.com
Thank You