UPSC Articles
MoU signed between the Ministry of Agriculture and Microsoft
Part of: GS Prelims and GS -II – Policies and interventions
In news
- Recently, the Ministry of Agriculture has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Microsoft to run a pilot programme for 100 villages in 6 states.
- The MoU requires Microsoft to create a ‘Unified Farmer Service Interface’ through its cloud computing services.
- It involves creating ‘AgriStack’ on which everything else will be built.
About AgriStack
- It is a collection of technologies and digital databases that focuses on farmers and the agricultural sector.
- AgriStack will create a unified platform for farmers to provide them end to end services across the agriculture food value chain.
- It is in line with the Centre’s Digital India programme, aimed at providing a broader push to digitise data in India, from land titles to medical records.
- Each farmer will have a unique digital identification (farmers’ ID) that contains personal details,
- Each ID will be linked to the individual’s digital national ID Aadhaar.
Need of the MoU
- At present, the majority of farmers across India are small and marginal farmers with limited access to advanced technologies or formal credit that can help improve output and fetch better prices.
Benefits
- Problems such as inadequate access to credit and information, pest infestation, crop wastage, can be addressed by use of digital technology.
- It will increase innovation and investment towards the agricultural sector
