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Impact of economic reforms on Indian agricultural sector: Application of geomatics technology to reduce marginalisation and vulnerability of small farmers in India


Fisheries Resources of India are either inland or marine. The principal rivers and the tributaries, canals, ponds, lakes, reservoirs comprise inland fisheries. The river extend about 27,200 kms, and other subsidiary water channel comprise about 112,000 kms. Marine resources comprises of about 2 Million sq.kms of EEZ for deep sea fishing, and 7,250 kms of coastline. With the diverse fish fauna, the development objectives are to judiciously & optimally utilize the resources for [NBFGR2K]:-
  • enhancing production and productivity of fishermen, fish farmers and fishing industry;
  • increasing fish production and thereby, raising nutritional standard of people;
  • earning of foreign exchange from export of marine products;
  • improving Socio-economic conditions of traditional fishermen;
  • generating employment for coastal and rural poor; and
  • conservation of depleting species of fish.
Good infrastructure helps in raising productivity and lowering the unit cost in the production activities of the economy. "Agricultural Infrastructure" refers to "Rural Infrastructure" whereas "Industrial Infrastructure" refers to "Urban Infrastructure".Agricultural development requires (i) agricultural research and extension, (ii) rural financial institution, (iii) irrigation and drainage, (iv) agricultural inputs (fertilizers, seeds, credits), and (v) marketing and storage facilities.

Agriculture Credit is a crucial input for increasing agricultural production and productivity. Institutional finance for Agricultural credit is disbursed mainly by Commercial banks, Regional Rural Banks, Land Development Banks, and Cooperative banks. Share of commercial banks in total institutional credit to agriculture is about 48%, that of Cooperative banks is about 46%, and Regional Rural Banks account for 6% only. Short-term Credit accounts for 2/3rd of the total institutional lending to the Agriculture.

Drought has multiplier effect on agricultural production during the subsequent year also, due to (i) non-availability of quality seeds for sowing of crops, (ii) inadequate draught power for carrying out agricultural operations as a result of either distress sale of cattle or loss of life, (iii) reduced use of fertilizers as the investment capacity of the farmers decline, (iv) non-availability of raw materials in agro-based industries, and (v) deforestation to meet the energy needs in domestic sector as agricultural waste may not be available in required quantity.

The Central Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) is responsible for implementation and formulation of national policies and programs to achieve agricultural growth through optimum utilization of the land resources, water, soil, plant, fisheries, & livestock resources. Government of India implements the following agricultural related Schemes (whether Watershed based or Agro-climatic region based) in the country, which deal agricultural resources information for Planning and Development:-
  • Agro-climatic Regional Planning (ACRP) Project
  • Agro-Ecological Mapping Project of the National Bureau of Soil Survey & Land Use Planning (NBSS&LUP)
  • All India Soil and Land Use Survey (AISLUS)
  • Early Warning System of Agricultural Situation in India
  • Forecasting of Agricultural output using Space, Agro-meteorology and Land based observations (FASAL) Project
  • Land Records Computerisation Project
  • National Agricultural Research Project (NARP)
  • National Agricultural Technology Project (NATP) to strengthen research-extension-farmer (r-e-f) linkage
  • National Watershed Development Program for Rain-fed Areas (NWDPRA)
  • Soil and Water Conservation Programs
  • Drought Prone Area Development programme
  • Desert Development Programme
  • National Wastelands Development programme
  • Integrated Mission on Sustainable Development (IMSD) Programme
Information for decision making
The major objective of Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development is to increase food production in a sustainable way and enhance food security. The Agenda-21 recommends major adjustments in agricultural, environmental and macro-economic policy to create the conditions for the Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development. Recommendations of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development - Agenda 21 (1992) on "Information for decision making" are as follows:-
  • development of indicators for sustainable development,
  • promotion of global use of indicators for sustainable development,
  • improvement of data collection and use,
  • improvement of methods of data assessment and analysis,
  • establishment of comprehensive information framework,
  • strengthening of capacity for traditional information,
  • production of information usable for decision making,
  • development of documentation about information,
  • establishment of standards and methods for handling information,
  • establishment and strengthening of electronics networking capabilities, and
  • making use of commercial information sources.
An Informatics model will have the knowledge components such as objects, events, know-how, precedence and cause-and-effect relationships and Meta-knowledge. Informatics, which is an IT application, is taking advantage of (i) multi databases (Federated and non-Federated databases), (ii) information system research and development methodology, (iii) relational-object methods, (iv) knowledge base and expert systems, (v) Geographical Information System (GIS) Technology , (vi) model bases, (vii) distributed query capabilities over INTERNET / INTRANET.

Development of Information Systems and utilization of Information Resources over INTERNET/ INTRANET is a matter of strategic importance in all countries today. Informatics Network plays an important role in the information flow from the implementation level to the planner at Macro(national) level, Macro-meso (region covering more than one state) level to Meso (state) level, and Micro (District, Block and Village) level.

Metadata standards are simply a common set of terms and definitions that describe geospatial and non-spatial data. Metadata standards provide a way for data users to know:-
  • What data are available
  • Whether the data meet specific needs
  • Where to find the data
  • How to access the data
The information needed to create metadata is often readily available, when the data are collected. A small amount of time invested at the beginning of a project may save money in future. The initial expense of documenting data clearly outweighs the potential costs of duplicated or redundant data generation. Metadata organization will facilitate for internet access to distributed sites where data are produced, maintained or used

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