Which way to the market? Assam logs in User-friendly government website touches huge base with info onweather, loans, disaster management and market access Samudra Gupta Kashyap Guwahati, June 9 Two years ago, when Bipin Gogoi, a science graduateof Titabor near Jorhat decided he would not look for a government jobbut take to farming, he had to go from pillar to post to getinformation about the market outside in order to sell the special joharice that he had started to produce.Two years later, thanks to a website created by the Assam agriculturedepartment, he has access to various market information at the clickof a mouse. The website (www.assamagribusiness.nic.in) is part of Project ASHA,launched under the auspices of Assam Small Farmers' Agri-BusinessConsortium, which farmers like Bipin Gogoi can access by paying justRs 5 per hour, with all the Community Information Centres (CIC)already set up in every developmental block across the state. ''This is a web portal enriched with useful information under oneumbrella which is aimed at marketing farmers, functionaries,scientists, traders and NGOs, and is currently available at all the219 CICs throughout the state,'' said Ariz Ahmed, CEO of theConsortium. This, Ahmed claims, is a unique website in the entire country, if notthe world, where as many as five sectors—agriculture, horticulture,animal husbandry, fishery and sericulture—have been included. ''The modern-day farmer does not only cultivate paddy and otheragricultural crops. He also owns fisheries, poultries, milch cows andlooms. Thus, with technology bringing various information andinnovations to his doorstep, farmers are bound to benefit,'' he said. ''It is something which is actually informative for persons like me,''said another graduate farmer who was in Guwahati last week to takepart in a workshop organised by the agriculture department to acquaintfarmers and extension officials with the use of IT in the ruralsector. A quick look at the website reveals it has latest information onweather, rainfall, markets, bank loan facilities, buy and sell, andalso disaster management, the last being so important for a highlyflood-prone state like Assam. As recently as last year, the the state's farmers were at thereceiving end of a series of devastating floods just five years afterbecoming a rice-surplus state for the first time since 1950. ''Providing the latest information and back-up to farmers is veryimportant in a state where the number of educated unemployed youth hasbeen going up every year. With no scope for setting up big industrieswhich can create large numbers of jobs, attracting the youth towardsfarming, sericulture, dairy- and poultry-farming has becomeimperative,'' said Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi in an interactivesession with farmers from all over the state here last week. With the number of farmers taking to cultivation of medicinal andaromatic crops growing over the past six or seven years, it has alsobecome important that the government provide them information accessto buyers across the globe. _______________________________________________ Assam mailing list [email protected] http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/mailman/listinfo/assam
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