Telangana: Crida develops app to gauge farmers' distress

Hyderabad: ICAR-CRIDA has developed an aApp on Farmers Distress Index under NABARD-funded research project on 'Farmers Distress and PMFBY. This project is led by Dr.AAmarender Reddy, Principal Scientist and Head, Section of Design and Analysis, ICAR-CRIDA, Hyderabad. Dr. T. Mohapatra, former Director General, ICAR released the app on the occasion in presence of Dr SK Choudhary, Deputy Director General (online), ICAR, Dr Dr V K Singh, Director, CRIDA, and Dr Rajbhir Singh, ADG (online), ICAR.

It is a forewarning system forewarn 3 months before the actual occurrence of probable widespread farmers distress among farmers. It is built on seven dimensions and 21 standardised questions to probe in drought-affected areas. This app will be helpful in measuring severity and dimensions of the probable distress and inform the local governments to take timely action to reduce severity.

The questions will be asked through phone to a sample of farmers in distressed mandals and data will be inputted directly into the App and the app will generate reports on severity of the distress in that locality.

The seven dimensions of farmers distress index are exposure to hazard; sensitivity to exposure to droughts and other whether calamities; adoptive capacity of farmers to adopt improved varieties and modern climate resilient technologies; mitigation and adaptation strategies for droughts, pest and disease; triggers for extreme distress like borewell failure, health problems and disability; socio-psychological aspects like pressure from money lenders for debt repayment, and overall impacts on farmers income, employment and livelihoods.