Farmers need to be more ‘smart’ to reap benefits of Uzhavan

Key features: The app was launched by the state government in a first-of-its-kind initiative in the country to help farmers get complete information on all agricultural scheme components, subsidy announcements and register themselves to avail of the benefits.

In addition, the farmers who have registered under the crop insurance scheme may know their application status using the app until they receive the compensation.

The farmers can also get information on seed and fertiliser availability in government, private and cooperative outlets near their residence, information on Customer Hiring Centre for renting farm machinery, details on prevailing prices in 277 regulated markets, weather forecast advisories to take up appropriate cultivation plans and information on the extension officer’s visit to their villages.

Number of downloads less: While a senior official of the Agriculture Department said theapp was launched on April 5 and has been downloaded by 1.69 lakh users so far, the number is said to be less compared to the number of farmers. Sources said the number of main cultivators in Tamil Nadu was 38.55 lakh (38,55,375) and agriculture labourers 72,34,101, as per the 2011 census by the Department of Economics and Statistics, Government of Tamil Nadu.

Farmers differ: “Mobile phone accessibility has just picked up among the farmers and they were yet to understand how to use smartphones,” said Swamimalai Sundara Vimalanathan of the Cauvery Farmers’ Protection Association. 

He was sceptical about the number of farmers who could use smartphones and those who know how to download apps from Google Playstore.

Puliyur A Nagarajan, a farmer leader, said many farmers have started to download the Uzhavan app as several details that a farmer needs are available through the app.

He thanked the government for such an initiative.

Officials to ensure farmers download app: A senior agriculture officer from Tiruchy said the total number of downloads can’t be just by the farmers as many do not have a smartphone.

“There are as many as 4,941 downloads and we cannot attribute all to farmers. We have been sensitising the farmers to download the app and formed a team of officials to monitor them when they download it as it offers plenty of information,” the official said. He added that the officials are present during all farmers’ grievances meetings to ensure that they download the app.

However, the officials said there are a few drawbacks in the Uzhavan app as only Google Translator has been used for Tamil translation and it often confuses the users with the terms used.

“We have been rectifying these problems gradually,” the agricultural official said and added that they have planned field visits to reach the target groups.