Restricted access and high cost of spatial data are hindering the use of geospatial technology to enhance agriculture management in India
GIS TECHNOLOGY HAS BEEN applied in the Indian agricultural sector but not to the desired extent. The policy initiatives taken by the government to promote remote sensing sector has helped and the spill off has been in agriculture as well. The Indian Satellite programmes and NNRMS project, funding of research projects in diverse agricultural research institutions by NRDMS are few examples. However, all these initiatives have been limited to research studies and generating limited regional crop area information for planning related studies. Till date, GIS technology has had a very limited impact on the agriculture sector as a whole, be it at the farm level, in agribusiness or in the academic setting of agricultural research, education and technology transfer.
The primary challenge for both technology generation and transfer in agriculture has been to capture knowledge of spatial variations in production processes and the outputs. This is because of problems: Use of agricultural inputs and their management is at the farm level, the impacts on productivity and profitability, and social and environmental impacts, are governed by the flows of inputs and outputs across the farm boundaries. To manage these flows, it is common to categorise agricultural production systems within spatially bounded regions like watersheds, agroecosystems, agroecological, agroclimatic zones, to address agricultural policy and resource management concerns. For example, effective decisions related to watershed management would require associating and analysing spatial variations of diverse variables and processes such as population, markets, infrastructure, rainfall, soils, groundwater, surface water, land use, topography and other local conditions that govern soil, crop, input, economic, hydrologic, environmental and other processes, on a regular basis, within the boundaries of the watershed. Similarly agribusinesses need to assess spatial variations in populations, farmers, product demand, and costs of providing goods and services within their catchments.
Addressing these challenges requires organising spatial data and knowledge in GIS-based framework that allows storing, visualising, interpreting, and analysing a variety of diverse spatial information about phenomena that vary across spatial scales. Together with other spatial information technologies like remote sensing, GIS offers increasingly powerful ways to plan, manage and monitor farms, agribusinesses, land use, natural resources development and environmental impacts, and for evaluating alternate agricultural scenarios, strategies, technologies and management interventions. It is the inadequate capacity to include spatial variations in resources, technologies, socio-economics and environmental impacts that is increasingly limiting agricultural productivities and agribusinesses, and leading to adverse environmental impacts like deterioration in the quality of the soils, water resources and even the climate.
However, given the importance of the spatial perspective in agricultural development, capacity building at one or a few locations is not adequate to address a challenge of this magnitude. It would be necessary to ensure that spatial data processing and knowledge management are internalised in agricultural education, research, agribusinesses, development agencies and NGOs. This would be possible only if development departments, agribusinesses, scientists, students and NGOs get easy access to GIS tools, spatial data and learning resources. The Geospatial Library and village GIS are two means of spatial data and knowledge management that can help in increasing agricultural productivities and incomes.
The geospatial library
The geospatial library is a concept that is applicable at a regional level. Geospatial library as a means of organizing geospatial data has been adopted in several universities in USA in which GIS tools are well entrenched in the curriculum across all major disciplines. It is this easy access to data at national and state level which promoted internalisation of GIS tools in education and the development of innovative solutions to resolve practical problems and improve efficiencies in the US. The emergence of precision agriculture as an efficient agricultural technology is the result of such easy access to students and agribusinesses. This has not been the case in India. It often takes years for Indian students and practitioners to even assemble geospatial data of relevance to solving a problem, let alone solve it. The geospatial library as source of providing access to geospatial data and resources is a concept that needs to be adopted in Indian agricultural universities. For application in India, the concept also needs to be expanded to encompass, not only access to spatial data and tools, but also to associated learning and knowledge resources to address a wide range of real-time problems.
A prototype geospatial library to provide web-based access to geospatial data, services and knowledge resources to support agricultural research, education and technology transfer, has been developed at National Academy of Agricultural Research Management NAARM.
The Library provides data of Andhra Pradesh, (which is the region covered by Acharya NG Ranga Agricultural University). The Library is accessed via a website designed for delivery of spatial data, attribute data and learning resources. The spatial data is at different scales and is available at state, district, block, village and field levels. The data layers include soils, watersheds (sub, minor and micro) and village level cadastral maps for some villages. Attribute data are available on various aspects of agricultural production. The spatial data is delivered to users on client systems in a convenient format (shape files) via an interface provided by ArcIMS. The downloaded data is compatible with any GIS software and can be integrated with other spatial and attribute data. Simple thematic mapping and geospatial analysis can also be carried out on line by the users after downloading the java viewer from the server.
Geospatial village knowledge management
While the Geospatial Library primarily addresses the supply side concerns, the demand side spatial data and knowledge management is equally important for local level planning. This can be addressed through a village-level GIS that can be implemented at village knowledge centre (VKC). At the village level, a GIS provides the framework for participatory decision-making by local communities. Like the Geospatial Library, the idea of participatory rural GIS is also relatively new in India. The village GIS will enable linking the land resource information with the corresponding socioeconomic information of farmers, households, related local infrastructure and other resources. Such a spatial data base at the VKC would be of immense value not only to the public institutions for targeting technologies and essential subsidies, but also to agribusinesses to target and deliver inputs, loans, insurance and a variety of other services like providing traceability data for exports, organic agriculture etc. GIS-based methodologies enable data access for both professionals and the common man at the village level. At this level, GIS provides a framework to document and store not only data but also indigenous knowledge meaningfully.
The village-level GIS has the potential to transform the way by which farms can be integrated into the supply chains of agribusinesses and enable farmers and local communities to add value to their products and raise their incomes. The village GIS can be easily developed locally and deployed at the VKC as user-friendly application using Map Objects or other programming tools, eliminating the need for installing complex GIS software at the VKC.
A prototype Geospatial Village Knowledge Management System (GVKMS) has been developed at NAARM to support agricultural decision-making by local communities. The GIS-based framework provides a base for decision-making in the context of the resources, needs and capabilities of local communities and local projects and programmes. The participatory GIS framework also provides a base to integrate local indigenous knowledge meaningfully. The prototype GVKMS has been integrated into a deployable application and installed in a VKC with help of local NGO.
The digitised spatial data layers included in the GVKMS comprise the village boundary, drainage, contours, roads, settlements, soils, micro watersheds and cadastral map. Several external databases are included to connect to these layers. These include village statistics on population, livestock, land use statistics, and survey number wise land use information. In addition, knowledge resources on technologies available and indigenous knowledge from local communities obtained by participatory processes are also included in the GVKIMS.
The way forward
The Geospatial Library and the village-level geospatial knowledge management system are different but complementary approaches to geospatial knowledge organisation to promote the advancement of agricultural management. Development of both of these depends on easy access to spatial data from various sources. In India, most government agencies that generate spatial data of relevance to agricultural planning and development do not have public access mandates. Much of the data collected by public agencies is usually in the form of analogue maps, reports and not in digital form. Even when the data is available in digital form, its access is either restricted or prohibitively expensive. Similarly, remote sensing information is also available but its cost is too high for applications by local development agencies and institutions. As a result, access to digital data and spatial information technologies in standard formats is a critical bottleneck in agricultural management in India. It would be practically impossible for public, private and nongovernmental organisations and individuals to effectively integrate spatial technologies into agricultural management, unless such data are made freely available in the public domain through public investments in spatial data infrastructure and devising policies for data access and interoperability of data.
It is necessary that geospatial data of agricultural relevance should be made easily accessible, if agricultural productivities are to be improved and academic institutions and agribusinesses in India are to become globally competitive. To do this, it would be necessary to form a consortium of spatial data generating agencies like Survey of India, NRSC/ISRO, ICAR/NBSSLU&P/NAARM, IMD, CWC, and others to develop a National Geospatial Library for free web-based access to geospatial data at scales relevant to agricultural and natural resources management, and agribusiness management.
NH Rao, MN Reddy and KV Kumar
National Academy of Agricultural
Research Management, Hyderabad
|
|
|
