Odisha Gearing up for Digital Crop Survey

Bhubaneswar: The Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment, Government of Odisha on Wednesday conducted a workshop for training of taluka level trainers on Digital crop Survey. This workshop witnessed the attendance of around 150 trainers who received instructions on how to successfully execute the Digital Crop Survey with the department’s assistance.

The Department of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare, Govt. of India intends to rollout Pilot Digital Crop Survey in Kharif-2023 in the 10 identified states including 4 districts of Odisha before rolling out the scheme for the entire country. The 4 Districts namely, Nayagarh, Bhadrak, Nuapada and Deogarh are nominated by the State for the initial pilot. The purpose of Digital Crop Survey is to assess the plot-level crops grown in every season on each verified land and authenticate the data through physical inspection of Geo-tagged photographs. To be more exhaustive, the Crop Survey system enables capture of crop information for each farmland plot, from within the boundary of the plot. Various stakeholders are employed to plan, manage, and conduct the survey. Surveyors appointed at the village level will be responsible for conducting the survey on ground by using a mobile application.

In order to prepare the district and block officials for proper and smooth implementation of the said intervention with the help from Agriculture and Revenue department resources within the timeline (45 days), an in-person training session about the demonstration of mobile application was held today at Krushi Bhawan, Bhubaneswar. The workshop was inaugurated by Dr. Arabinda Padhee, Principal Secretary, Department of Agriculture & Farmers’ Empowerment. This was followed by a presentation on the importance of crop survey, demonstration of the application and web portal, ending with a role play activity by the participants to test the understanding of the roles and responsibilities of the different stakeholders and to get hands-on experience of operating the mobile application.

The state is looking forward to successful implementation of pilot Digital Crop Survey in 4 districts of Odisha from Kharif-2023 season and will then be rolling it out in the entire State from the agricultural year 2024-25 based on the experience.

Inaugural session was attended by Prem Chandra Chaudhary, Director Agril & FP, Rohit Lenka, Director Horticulture. Hands on Training was imparted by Sarita, Manager, CPMU. Technical Experts Siddhant Agarwal, Ankita of SAMAGRA Team & Kirti,State Coordinator, CPMU assisted & conducted the training.