Learn from China's farm sector experiment: Narayana Murthy

`IT sector should equip stakeholders with information for value-addition'

Bangalore: The Government should learn from the Chinese experience of drawing marginal farmers into low-tech manufacturing industries, Infosys Chief Mentor N.R. Narayana Murthy has said.

He was delivering the keynote address at the fifth international conference of the Asian Federation for Information Technology in Agriculture (AFITA) here on Thursday.

China had successfully moved 150 million people from farming into low-tech sectors. In India, where 72 per cent of the population involved in agriculture was facing the challenges of stagnant growth and depletion of resources, the Information Technology sector should help stakeholders by equipping them with relevant information for value-addition, he said.

This was particularly relevant in a situation when severe shortfall of food grains was imminent. By 2010, the demand for wheat in India was expected to reach 84 million tonnes as against a stipulated production of 70-72 million tonnes, Mr. Narayana Murthy said.

The water table in places such as Punjab and Haryana, which depended heavily on tube wells, was sinking by an alarming 20 cm a year, he said.

The success of experiments such as the Bhoomi project initiated by the State Government to digitalise land records and the e-Choupal project spread across six States to make information accessible to farmers were good examples of how IT could help, Mr. Narayana Murthy said. The crucial thing was to provide easy access to affordable broadband across rural India, he said.

Speaking on the occasion, Principal Secretary, Agriculture and Horticulture, A. Ramaswamy, said the State had the ambition of doubling its agricultural production in the next 10 years, leveraging its IT potential of the State.

India was "not a tiger economy but a elephant economy" that might not have speed, but had strength, he added.

The inaugural session was attended by Seishi Ninomiya, Secretary-General of AFITA, and V.C. Patil, president of the Indian Society of Agricultural Information Technology.

Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy and Deputy Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa, who were expected, did not attend the function.

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