Andhra Pradesh agriculture project wins international information prize

Project : Andhra Pradesh
Motive : To collect specific climate data from farms and give farmers personalised information through SMS.
Awarded Prize : Won the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) 2016 prize in the e-Agriculture category.
Developer of the Project : The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) in Hyderabad.
Venue :  A pilot run in Anantpur district.
International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Secretary-General Houlin Zhao announced the prize in Geneva.

Recognition of WSIS Prizes:

• In the effort to improve global connectivity, from governments and global information communication technological companies to grassroots NGOs leading innovative ICT-oriented projects at the lower level.
• A total of 18 prizes were awarded in categories ranging from international cooperation to information ethics.

Prestige :

• It is the prestige to everyone for getting the prize in the e-Agriculture category was the only one won by an Indian organisation.
• The project, Harmonized Information of Agriculture, Revenue and Irrigation for a Transformation Agenda- Precision Technology for Agriculture or HARITA-PRIYA.

Advantage:

It uses wireless sensor networks (WSN) to collect micro-climate information from farms, according to WSIS.

Purpose:

• This data is used to create advisories and alerts on irrigation schedules and pests and plant disease. Based on them state agriculture officers send out personalised crop advisories in Telugu to farmers by SMS.
• The Andhra Pradesh government, the Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture (CRIDA), the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) station and the Acharya N G Ranga Agricultural University in Anantapur partnered in the project.