CISCO to set up Village Knowledge Centres in Kerala

Cisco would build an Agri-Digital Infrastructure (ADI) Platform and set up Village Knowledge Centers (VKCs) in Kerala's Kannur district for knowledge delivery and provide access to e-learning and advisory services to the farming and fishing communities.

The first phase of this initiative would be rolled out in 15 panchayats across Kannur district, a press release said.

An MOU in this regard was signed by Cisco, as part of its Country Digitization Acceleration (CDA) programmeand the Kerala State IT Mission (KSITM) to bring the benefits of digital technology and data science to the farming communities in Kerala, a press release said.

The comprehensive ADI Platform would provide access to a data store with complete farming data of paddy and prawns farms in the region along with land and farmer profile databases.

This data store would run Cisco's robust analytics and compute engines to extract insights on crop yields, weather patterns, plant disease patterns, soil quality, moisture content, forecasting and other data, and make it available to farmers and government officials through the VKC's.

This Cisco ADI Platform would be supplemented by a custom-built Smart Agricultural Platform that uses IoT sensors, Non-IoT databases, Satellite/UAV Images to gather and relay real-time intelligence on soil content, moisture, weather conditions and other paramaters.

This platform would become a centralised knowledge hub which would provide data-based recommendations and insights to improve agriculture planning, reduce the risk of crop mortality and overall operational costs.

Through VKC's, farmers can also access essential information on government policy updates, crop advisory services, market trends, rates and best practice videos.

Farmers would also gain accessibility to government provisioned financing on a Content Management System through a mobile application and web portal.

Apart from KSITM, the programme would be supported by MIZONE (Malabar Innovation Zone), Government College of Engineering, Kannur, Department of Agriculture, Department of Fisheries and Local Panchayat with FPO's.

Managing Director of Public Affairs & Strategic Engagements, Cisco, Harish Krishnan said the impact of technology can be transformational for those who need it most, elevating standards of living and foster economic development.

Digitisation was a great equaliser and can play a pivotal role by providing a cost-effective way to deliver information services to a large, dispersed population, he said.

Sivasankar M, Officer on Special Duty to Chief Minster and Principal IT Secretary, the state government's vision was to turn the State into a knowledge society with sustainable economic growth, technological advancements and better quality of life for all.

"I envision digitally empowering every farmer of the State eventually by strengthening the ecosystem in agriculture, aquaculture, and skill development", he said.