Agriculture ministry inks pact with Digital Green to develop national digital extension platform

New Delhi, Feb 7 (KNN) The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare on Monday signed an agreement with Digital Green to build a national level digital extension platform.

According to the official statement, the platform will host a digital library of curated multi-format multi-lingual content, help extension workers access and deliver curated content to farmers on time and upskill the vast network of extension workers for agriculture, horticulture, fisheries, livestock and rural livelihood missions through certified online courses.

Addressing the occasion, Manoj Ahuja, Secretary, MoA&FW said, “The proposed national digital platform will help make our extension system more efficient and effective by connecting farmers to the strong foundation of digital agriculture ecosystem that is being built by the government.”

“The digital capacity of this extension system is crucial to help farmers reap the benefits of digital agriculture and will serve as one of the components of Digital Public Infrastructure for agriculture announced recently in the Union Budget,” he said.

Currently, there are over 200,000 extension workers in India in agriculture, livelihood and allied sectors.

The extension platform will have the portal and capabilities to serve the entire farming community in India and catalyse agritech and other market actors with newer and higher value propositions, the ministry said.

Digital Green has been working with governments in Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, serving over 25 lakhs farmers and having enhanced the capacities of over 4,000 front-line workers.  (KNN Bureau)