PJTSAU Faculty Left Of Australia To Study “Gyan Kisan” App In WSU

Hyderabad, Aug.16 (Maxim News): Two faculty of Professor Jayashanker Telangana State Agricultural University, Rajendranagar, left for Australia today for two months to study and validate Mobile “Gyan Kisan” App in farmers’ field condition of Western Sydney University (WSU). The visit is a collaborative activity as a part of tripartite MoU signed among WSU Australia, Riverbridge Ventures (RV), India and PJTSAU.

The development of this App is to explore the scientific expertise in Agriculture domain and its capabilities that can be effectively combined to enhance and transform agriculture extension services. The mobile App is under pilot testing at four test beds (villages) namely Vallapuram, Thallapusalapalle, Nandivaddeman and Cherlabuthkur and orientation was given to 200 farmers 50 each from the four selected villages.

The baseline survey and data of farmers was collected with the help of scientists of three KVKs- Wyra, Malyal, Palem and one DAATTC –Karimnagar besides the help taken from AEO’s of Agriculture department and Change Gurus (Representative of river bridge venture) by using interview schedule. It is also planned to test this App at one of the FPO at Veldandamandal of nagarkurnool district with the help of SERP, Telangana shortly.

The crop husbandry data of crops like Paddy, Maize, Groundnut, Cotton, Castor, Redgram, Chillies, Tomato, Bhendi, Brinjal are uploaded in the App for the benefit of farmers. The farmer wise crop calendar is created in the App along with the Pest/Disease pictures, Weather updates, market price forecasting of major crops and a toll free phone number is provided for the benefit of farmers to raise their queries.

The pilot testing is being done in the selected villages of Telangana State and data collected from farmers and will be analyzed with the help of WSU Australia during their visit. This visit will enable the scientists to explore the possibilities of refinement and up scaling the “Gyan Kisan” App by studying its implementation and performance at farmer’s level.

Dr V. Praveen Rao, Vice Chancellor of PJTSAU, said the University has collaboration with many agricultural universities across the countries like the USA, Germany, Canada, Vietnam, Philippines, Australia besides 26 MoUs with national institutes, private input companies, Agriculture Universities, Horticultural Universities, IITs, and Corporate. And, as a part of MoU’s many faculty and students of PJTSAU are visiting these countries under faculty exchange programme for research, education and training. Further, as the University at present is ranked as one of the best in the country many top Universities in India and abroad be it in the field of education, research, extension and training are coming forward to seek collaboration with PJTSAU. (Maxim News)