HIGHLIGHTS -
- Senior Leaders of the duo inaugurated the State-Of-The-Art Farmers Training Cum Resource Centre in the Gunaga Village of Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh
- Two days programme was attended by the senior leaders from the Vodafone Idea Foundation and Solidaridad
- Programme was introduced with-in the dominant production system of soy and cotton in the state of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra with 50,000 farmers for a period of two years
- The project is expanded in four new states i.e. Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Assam and Telangana with a target of 3, 00,000 farmers in near future
Media Kesari
Bhopal - Dr Nilay Ranjan, CSR Head, Vodafone Idea Limited and Jeroen Douglas, Executive Director, Solidaridad Network, and Dr Shatadru Chattopadhayay, Managing Director, Solidaridad Asia, all senior leaders first visited to SmartAgri project locations in Madhya Pradesh.
During the daylong meeting with stakeholders the purposeful discussion was held on the area of cooperation and joint efforts towards different themes i.e. role of digital IOT solutions in agriculture, sustainable eco-agriculture and other cross-cutting themes i.e. gender, food security, health and nutrition and promotion of high-value crops for crop diversification and income enhancement of farmers etc.
On 30th September, 2021 they inaugurated the State-of-the-Art Women Farmers Training Cum Resource Center under the SmartAgri project in Gunaga village of Bhopal district, Madhya Pradesh, India, in the presence of officials from Madhya Pradesh State Rural Livelihood Mission, Dr B V Mehta, Executive Director, The Solvent Extractors’ Association of India (SEA), Mr Vikash Sharma, Head - International Trade, Godrej Industries Ltd., India and the women farmers of the village.
Solidaridad with the CSR support of Vodafone India Foundation initiated the SmartAgri project in January, 2020. The project was introduced with-in the dominant production system of soy and cotton in the state of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra with 50,000 farmers for a period of two years. The smart agriculture-as-a-service solution like automatic weather stations, soil probes, insect traps and crop cameras to help drive productivity of crops and to help farmers for better access to weather information and preparedness to the changing climatic conditions, was initiated under the digital literacy and digital content-driven training programme. The project has created significant impact in Madhya Pradesh with 34.5% higher yield and around 14.45 % reduction in the cost of cultivation in comparison to non-project farmers. Farmers are supported for better access to markets and fair prices through Farmer Producer Organizations. The gender sensitization efforts have made pragmatic change and women are turning out to be equal partners with their male counterparts in training, skill building, entrepreneurship development and decision-making process both within households and community institutions like FPOs.
Mr Jeroen Douglas, Executive Director, Solidaridad Network, the Netherlands mentioned, “We are confident that the women’s resource cum training centre we inaugurated today would play a key role in extension of smart agricultural solutions especially for women farmers. This would contribute towards creating a level playing field, while addressing the barriers to equal participation for women and work towards real transformative change in gender roles in agriculture. I appreciate our partnership with the Vodafone Idea Foundation. The collaborative efforts of Solidaridad - Vodafone Idea Foundation have delivered remarkable success and positive outcomes in terms of improving farm efficiency, smallholders’ livelihood and building their resilience to Climate Change”.
At the inaugural ceremony, Dr Nilay Ranjan, Head, Corporate Social Responsibility, Vodafone Idea Limited said “We are committed to leverage technology strength and digital solutions to enhance the overall sustainability performance of the agriculture sector around the social, economic and environmental aspects. The SmartAgri project assumes significance as climate change, land scarcity; among others remain a hurdle in the way to enhancing farm productivity, therefore the smart agriculture solutions are promoted to help empower the farming communities to build their own pathways towards productivity enhancement, better livelihoods and adaptation to climate change. I would like to appreciate the efforts of Solidaridad for effective implementation of the SmartAgri project on ground. We started with support to 50000 farmers in two states and now expanded across six states of the country with tarte of 300000 farmers in multiple commodities.”
Dr Shatadru Chattopadhayay, Managing Director, Solidaridad Asia said, “The digital intervention promoted through the SmartAgri project with the support of Vodafone Idea Foundation is proven to be revolutionary in transforming agriculture. We appreciate our partnership with Vodafone Idea Foundation; the strong partnership we have built has been the catalyst for deployment of IOT based digital tools and solutions towards bringing the change in the lives of smallholder farmers. The precise information and scientifically proven advisories shared to farmers help them for optimum use of resources i.e. water, fertilizers and pesticides and in turn increase the productivity and contribute towards the ecosystem restoration. We look forward to further scale-up the proven smart agriculture solutions to millions of farmers in the country.”
Equipped with necessary training infrastructure, demonstration equipment and digital tools, the Training Cum Resource Centre is designed to impart knowledge on various scientific practices, soil management and agricultural practices among farmers especially women farmers associated with an all-women-led Farmer Producer Organization (FPO) called Rakshika Mahila Kisan Producer Company. The cross-cutting issues related to gender and nutritional security related aspects are also well addressed towards inclusivity and well-being of the society.
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