PJTSAU to explore Australian expertise
Hyderabad: Two faculty members of Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University, Rajendranagar, Hyderabad are leaving for Australia on Friday for about two months to study and validate Mobile "GyanKisan"App in farmer's field condition of Western Sydney University (WSU). This visit is a collaborative activity as a part of tripartite MoU signed between WSU Australia, River bridge ventures (RV), India and PJTSAU. The development of this App is to explore the scientific expertise in agriculture domain and its capabilities that can be effectively combined to enhance and transform agriculture extension services.
The mobile App is under pilot testing at 4 test beds (villages) namely Vallapuram, Thallapusalapalle, Nandivaddeman and Cherlabuthkur and orientation was given to 200 farmers (fifty each) from these 4 selected villages. The baseline survey and data of farmers was collected with the help of scientists of three KVKs- Wyra, Malyal, Palem and one DAATTC –Karimnagar besides the help taken from AEO's of Agriculture department and Change Gurus (Representative of river bridge venture) by using interview schedule. It is also planned to test this App at one of the FPO at Veldandamandal of Nagarkurnool district with the help of SERP, Telangana shortly.
The crop husbandry data of crops like Paddy, Maize, Groundnut, Cotton, Castor, Redgram, Chillies, Tomato, Bhendi, Brinjal are uploaded in the App for the benefit of farmers. The farmer wise crop calendar is created in the App along with the Pest/Disease pictures, Weather updates, market price forecasting of major crops and a toll free phone number is provided for the benefit of farmers to raise their queries.
The pilot testing is being done in the selected villages of Telangana State and data collected from farmers and will be analyzed with the help of WSU Australia during their visit. This visit will enable the scientists to explore the possibilities of refinement and up scaling the "GyanKisan" App by studying its implementation and performance at farmer's level.