Three web portals for farmers launched

Three web portals - Participatory Guarantee System, India, Soil Health Management System and Fertiliser Quality Control System - were launched on Wednesday by Agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh for the benefit of farmers.

"Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) portal 'www.pgsindia-ncof.gov.in' has been launched to promote domestic organic market growth and enable small and marginal farmer to have easy access to organic certification, a decentralised organic farming certification system," the agriculture minister said while launching the portal.

The portal has been developed for registration, approval, documentation, record of inspection and certification for farmers.

Farmers will browse through databases of organic producers to get information about the area under PGS certification with due traceability.

Since it is a group certification programme, individual farmers are given certificate as members of a group.

Soil Health Management System (SHMC) will provide assistance to state governments to issue 'soil health cards' and also develop a database to improve service delivery.

It provides improved and targeted guidelines to manage deficiencies and scientific expertise in diagnostic and management of nutrient deficiencies, he said.

Soil Health Card portal (www.soilhealth.dac.gov.in) has been developed for registration of soil samples, test results of soil samples and generation of soil health card along with recommendation of fertilisers.

The SHC promotes uniform adoptions of codes. The system has a sample tracking feature and will provide alerts to farmers about sample registration," Singh said while launching the portal for SHMC.

The scheme has been approved for implementation during the 12th plan with an outlay of Rs.568.54 crore. For 2015-16 fiscal, Rs.96.46 crore have been allocated.

The scheme will be implemented on 50:50 sharing basis between the central and state governments, the minister added.

Similarly, Fertiliser Quality Control System (FQCS) is aimed to ensure availability of quality fertilisers to farmers.

Launching the portal 'www.fqcs.dac.gov.in', the minister said, "It has been developed for sample collection, testing and generation of analysis reports. The FQCS will help in online tracking of the sample status.

In the first phase, the system will be implemented in central coding office and its three reginal fertiliser control laboratories (RFCLs). Subsequently, the system will be extended to all state quality control laboratories.

At present, there are 78 notified fertiliser quality control laboratories in the country, Radha Mohan Singh said.

-Indo-Asian News Service

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