About AKMINDIA

A joint project of ICAR, ICRISAT, IIT (Bombay, Kanpur), IITM, GBPAU, UASD and NAARM, AKM India is aimed at providing information on the various topics related to agriculture. AKM India aims at combining all the research and technological advancements related to agriculture with the expertise of the various learning and research agencies across India. The combined information would then be provided to the farmers, rural facilitators, agricultural experts and the various students via a Wikipedia based platform known as Agropedia. The Chief objectives of AKM India are as follows.

  • To establish and sustain a knowledge organization based on Agriculture in India
  • An online and offline forum where all queries related to agriculture shall be answered or discussed
  • To build a database that covers the majority of agriculture related topic on a Wikipedia based system
  • Provide high level of agriculture related expertise to the students, farmers and agricultural experts etc.
  • To develop a stable digital causeway that enables a secure and long term collaboration between the NARES organizations and the ICT sector in India

The NARES organization has always been instrumental in providing a multilingual educational database and content in India. The content being developed for the AKM India project is multilingual and covers almost every aspect of Agriculture. The ICT sector will further increase the availability and quality of the content by make a proper and secure digital format of the data. A wide range of information services related to agriculture will also be provided to the farmers, rural facilitators and extension personnel etc.

The principle implementation methods of the AKM India are as follows.

  1. Content of the data base will be called Agropedia and will be organized based in a similar manner as Wikipedia. The FAO’s AGROVOC will be used as the major source of the content and this project will be headed by IIT- Kanpur with GBPUAT, UAS-Dharwad and ICRISAT.
  2. A Q&A forum for this database shall be used to answer and discuss the question asked by the farmers and agricultural experts. The capacity strengthening programs shall also increase the level of expertise and the quality of the content. The project shall be headed by IIT-Bombay, joined in by GBPUAT, UAS-Dharwad, ICRISAT and NAARM.
  3. Training and delivery services shall also be provided under this project and will ensure the use of specific program or tool necessary for a particular agricultural task. The project is headed by IITM- Kerala and KISSAN.
  4. Research on methods of improving the agricultural produce shall also be a key part of the whole AKM India project. A geospatial library that provides data and research topics and practices those are in use and will be headed by NAARM.
  5. Information support and awareness building is important among the agricultural experts and farmers so they constantly get notified of new practices and technology in the field of agriculture. The method also aims at solving the literacy issues and providing the farmers and rural facilitators with a comprehensive information. This will be headed by the ICRISAT
  6. With the research and development of a vast number of agricultural practices and technology, the implementation also becomes a major concern. The method will ensure proper training and education is provided to the rural facilitators and farmers so they implement the techniques developed under the project. This is headed by IITM- Kerala along with NARES and ICT.