Tablet PCs to help farmers

Manila An India-based non-government organisation will help the department of agriculture in the Philippines produce a cheap Tablet-computer with applications that farmers can use to produce high yield in agricultural products, sources have said.

Creating a $100 (Dh367) Tablet-PC for Filipino farmers is a joint project of the Manila’s Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Agricultural Research and the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, based in India, said Loqal, a business and finance website.

“We have an idea to revolutionise Philippine agriculture,” said William Dar, a Filipino national and general manager of ICRISAT, an NGO that was founded in 1972 with the help of the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, with assistance from the United Nations.

“Tapping the power of IT, we can inform farmers well,” Dar told Loqal.

In the proposed bilateral agreement for the project, the government-run Indian Telephone Industry will fabricate the Tablet-PC for Filipino farmers.

The Bureau of Agricultural Research and the Open Philippine Academy for Philippine Agriculture which is operated by the department of agriculture will provide the content of the proposed Tablet-PC.

ICRISAT will also offer access to Agropedia, a farm management system (FMS) and geographic information system (GIS) that were developed earlier to help Indian farmers.

GIS helps farmers determine the perfect matching of fields and crops. FMS identifies the kind of fertiliser and the amount of water needed by various types of soil.

“These ready applications can help Filipino farmers, too,” Ching Natividad Caballero, chief executive officer of BAR IT consultant Optiserve also told Loqal.

Government subsidies

Local government units that are interested in helping their respective farmers with the proposed Tablet-PC and its software, will approve the joint project.

The Philippine government should follow India’s example in pricing the Tablet-PC, other sources said.

In India, the government subsidises 50 per cent of the $100 Tablet-PC. It also provides cheap internet access, the cost of which is equivalent to P100 per month.

Indian farmers increased their yield in corn and soybean by 50 to 60 per cent when they used the GIS-enabled Tablet-PC in a pilot project in Karnataka.

Similar projects are being replicated in several states of India such as Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Maharashtra.

“If we can do it in India, why can’t you do it in the Philippines?” Suhas Wani, from ICRISAT, told Loqal.