New Delhi, India
January 21, 2009
by M. Sreelata,
SciDevNet
Indian scientists have launched an 'agricultural Wikipedia' to
act as an online repository of agricultural information in the
country.
The government-backed initiative,
Agropedia, was
launched last week (12 January).
It aims to disseminate crop- and region-specific information to
farmers and agricultural extension workers — who communicate
agricultural information and research findings to farmers — and
provide information for students and researchers.
The website currently contains information on nine crops — rice,
wheat, chickpea, pigeon pea, vegetable pea, lychee, sugarcane,
groundnut and sorghum — but its creators say that all
agriculture-related topics will be eventually covered.
Content will be continually added and validated through review
and analysis by invited agricultural researchers, in a manner
similar to that used by Wikipedia and using open source tools,
says V. Balaji, head of knowledge management and sharing with
the International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid
Tropics (ICRISAT), a partner in the project.
The site also houses blogs and forums where anyone can provide
and exchange knowledge.
The 85 million-rupee (around US$17 million) project is being
implemented over 30 months and is backed by the National
Agricultural Innovation Project, a six-year government programme
intended to modernise agriculture.
The World Bank and the Indian government have provided the
funding for the project and six Indian agricultural and
technology institutions are partners in the project, providing
information and technological expertise.
India is considered a global leader in promoting innovative ways
of using technology for farm and rural outreach, Balaji told
SciDev.Net.
In the last five years close to 12,000 information
technology-enabled rural information centres — some with
Internet access — have been established but there is a lack of
accessible agricultural information, he says.
It is hoped that even where farmers have no access to the
Internet, the Agropedia information can be used as a basis for
radio plays, for example, says Balaji.
Agropedia's lead architect, T. V. Prabhakar of the Indian
Institute of Technology in Kanpur, initially envisioned the
website as the equivalent of Wikipedia for global agriculture
three years ago, but for now it will concentrate on
India-specific information.
He says that the initial phase of the project — developing a
mechanism to manage the vast repository of knowledge — is nearly
completed, and the next step is to develop ways to disseminate
the knowledge.
Trials will soon begin in six locations around the country.
Agropedia:
http://agropedia.iitk.ac.in/ |
|