The engagement focuses on driving the rollout and adoption of Integrated Farming Systems and creating a platform for technology-oriented innovation in Agriculture through AI solutions.

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‍Engagement Highlights

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Innovation Cell in the Agriculture Dept: 

The structure of the cell has been proposed by the Fellow and is being finalised with all key departmental stakeholders.  The constitution of the associated committees has been approved by the Director and Commissioner and forwarded to the Secretary, Agriculture and ACS, Planning for their approval. The Fellow also facilitated the MoUs signoff by Boomitra and Origo Commodities, enabling a partnership to enable large-scale synergies for promoting sustained agri practices in the State. Anand Sri from Subhiksha Organic Cooperative who did the tie up with Boomitra on Carbon Credits has now onboarded 20,000 acres of land and about 7,000 farmers. 

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Integrated Farming Systems (IFS)

The Fellow’s office was instrumental in making necessary changes to the IFS scheme for year 2 as well as refining the scheme guidelines. Separate provision for training & better monitoring was made.

The Fellow’s office supported  the team in terms of better monitoring, better roll out, and training to farmers.  This quarter was a slow quarter for this scheme, as the group was focussed on clearing subsidy payments pending from March quarter.

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Other Initiatives

• The Fellow’s office worked  with the Department in support work for the launch of the new Directorate  of Secondary Agriculture  - PPTs, DPRs, Planning, Additional Reports etc. They explored ideas like Agri waste, Food processing units, to be provided through convergence of schemes, identified the NRAA scheme for the purpose, and worked on an action plan
• Facilitated sale of 126 Tonnes of FPO produce, worth Rs 22.9Lakhs, through Origo commodities, which the Fellow Designate had helped in setting up operations in 3 districts - Chitradurga, Haveri and Davanagere. 
• Two companies have been onboarded: Wadhwani AI to implement their artificial intelligence-based solution on cotton pest management and Takachar to contribute agri-waste-to-value solutions for particular crops. These ideas are currently being reviewed by the Department and a pilot has been launched in Dharwad district. As part of this pilot there was an orientation of the field staff and onboarding of more than 1000 lead farmers from the district.

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