Hundreds of farmers had received mobile phone handsets from the government free of cost in one of the much publicized schemes for better access to agriculture related information in 2014.
But in over three years time , the plight of the farmer remains unchanged , if not worsened as reflected by the number of suicides, distress sale of produce, agitations and dharna by farmers who have not received crop insurance money or input subsidy.
Not a single instance of a farmer overcoming his problem with the free mobile handset has been reported. The agitations in different parts of the state do expose that the mobile phone related agri service has flopped and the instrument is perhaps used for other purposes.
For instance there was an alarming situation in Bargarh district when pest attacks took place and farmers were at their wits end since they had sprayed pesticides. A couple of farmers committed suicide while others burnt their crops hoping that the rest of the crop can be saved.
Agriculture scientists inspected and found that the pesticide used by the farmer was not effective on the species of pest that infected the crop instead it helped the pest breed faster.
They also found that a few farmers who had managed to get the right kind of pesticide did not know how to use it and instead of the root end they had sprayed it from above the plant.
The crux of the problem was that the farmer was not informed nor was the right kind of pesticide supplied. The mobile handset ought to have been used for flow of such information and on usage of the pesticide. Apparently none had bothered and the result was a few farmers lost their lives while others suffering huge debt.
Similarly crop insurance and input subsidy payment related issues have forced farmers to take to the streets. Insurance related issues are acute since 2015 and payments not made.
Mobile phones have failed to bail out even in such situations. The objective of the scheme was to provide access and information to the farmer.
All of it has failed miserably and yet the talk is about e-mandi, e-market and access to markets providing the best price for farm producer …so on ! In Jagatsinghpur district 510 cell phones were received in 2014 and 490 distributed to farmers. 30 farmers refused to accept it as they said they cannot operate it.
Farmers were asked to purchase SIM card and submit their number to receive information on market price etc. They were told to submit their number to the agmarknet.nic.in portal for receiving information on market prices of agricultural produce.
It had also decided to register farmer’s SIM card with the Digital Mandi to get information on market prices of various agricultural produce in different markets through the mobile phones in form of voice call and SMS.
After four years of distribution, it was found that most of the farmers had not registered their SIM with ag – marknet.nic.in. Prasuram Lenka, a farmer of Naugaon area said ‘ the mobile handset given to me four years ago is of no value at all, I have not received any message on market price, weather and other information so it is useless’.