The real India resides in Villages. That,s why the Father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi gave call for “Go to Villages” during Indian Independence Movement. He knew, unless and until the independence movement reaches to the remotest corner of the India, it would not take the form of National movement.
The Indian villages are characterized by traditional, conservative society. The technology has not yet penetrate to the extent it has been in cities. According to Census 2011, 86% of Indian farmers are marginal farmers i.e. possesses/owns less than 5 acres of land. The rural India is facing the social issues like poverty, hunger, suicides, unemployment, health, education etc. The share of Indian agriculture sector in Indian economy at the time independence was more than 50%. It has gradually decline to mere 17% in 2018. Also, agriculture sector used to employ more than 90% population at the time of independence. Now, about 48% population of India engage in agriculture sector. The reason behind this is largely due to apathy of political leadership towards the villages, the traditional mindset of people and conservative way of farming. The large scale out-migration from rural to urban regions is rampant in India due to rise of unemployment opportunities in rural areas, the fragmentation of land, unproductive agriculture occupation due to various reasons like erratic behaviors of monsoon, overuse of fertilizers, pesticides, salinization of soil etc.
The one of the reasons behind bad condition of Indian villages is lack of technological penetration into hinterland of rural India. Even in 2019, only 5% of marginal farmers in India uses the mechanized farm instruments. Even today, large number of farmers use bullock driven wooden plough for ploughing. While big harvestors are available in market but marginal farmers cannot afford it as it is very costly. The green revolution which had started in 1970s has increased the agriculture productivity to large extent but due to irrational usage of pesticides and fertilizers made soil unproductive and barren.
Technology works hard to ease human workload. The prime reason behind the failure of crop is erratic behavior of monsoon. For this problem, the weather forecasting satellites has been deployed by the ISRO which forecasts the weather and informs the farmers about monsoon prior to agriculture season. Also, the ISRO has deployed the remote sensing satellites for measuring the crop patterns in India and accordingly provide information to farmers about the likely crop they should take. Apart from this satellite technology, the government is also giving the subsidies to farmers to buy mechnized instruments for agriculture. The Research and Development Departments of various government, non-government, private agencies are innovating new breeds of seeds which can give higher productivity despite unpredictable monsoon, for example, Genetically Modified Crops etc. The Genetically Modified seeds are the seeds which are processed in Biotechnology laboratories. At the same time, solar water pumps which runs on solar energy can also prove useful in long run as it will reduce the electricity expenditure of farmers.
While we are talking about technology in agriculture, the talk would be incomplete without mentioning the food processing technology as it is most important forward linkages to the agriculture sector. Food processing industry is very important for perishable items like vegetables, fruits etc. Especially the sugarcane industries in the states of Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab. The food processing industries are proving boon for agriculture products.
Thus, we can say that, interlinking technology with agriculture is very important to revive the Indian Agriculture sector and uplift out 48% population in socio-economic setup.
Winter Institute in Digital Humanities 