From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network
Bengaluru, Oct 16: While Bengalis are proud to have their own Dr Abjijt Banerjee of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) winning this year’s Economics Nobel prize along with his wife Dr Esther Dufflo, coffee growers of India, especially in Karnataka’s Chikkamagaluru, Kodagu and Hassan districts, are equally proud that the third person to share the Nobel prize for Economics Dr Michael Kremer of Harvard University had worked extensively with Indian Coffee Board to help the coffee growers.
Dr Kremer is the Co-Founder of the highly useful Precision Agriculture Development (PAD) and under his guidance and leadership Team PAD have been working with Coffee Board of India and the coffee ecosystem for more than one year now.
Dr Michael Kremer
Coffee plantation
“Thanks to the stellar efforts of Michael, Shawn, Madhur, Niriksha and Team Coffee Board, we have been able to have a positive impact on the lives of 15000 coffee farmers using a simple missed call service, free of cost to coffee farmers,’’ said Dr Srivatsa Krishna, IAS, CEO and Secretary,Coffee Board of India.
Dr Srivatsa Krishna said the Coffee Krishi Taranga Service launched about a year ago, involves a weekly advisory on critical farm operations, updated daily market information through an automated push call via a simple missed call by registered coffee farmers to the call center on 080-37685000 run by the Board.
Through this platform expert agronomists of CCRI, call back the farmer and give detailed expert advice on various specific farmer issues.
Even though the programme has run for just one year, a recent dipstick survey done shows significant impact on farmers income and it will be expanded to cover 50,000 farmers shortly.
“Following the unparalleled vision, the first by any political leader in independent India, this partnership between Coffee Board and PAD is another step in the direction of doubling farmers income through multi-faceted interventions,’’ Dr Srivatsa Krishna said.
“What is interesting and perhaps hidden in the sands of time, is the fact that PAD’s journey in India begun as an academic experiment in Gujarat with cotton farmers in 2011 (expanded in 2016 as PAD) when Narendra Modi, then Chief Minister, encouraged this path-breaking idea to be tested out as an experiment in the field there. His keen eye spotted the promise of combining the use of technology and the inherent simplicity of this IVR Platform, with a model that is free to farmers and delivers advise on the tap, anytime anywhere for their welfare,’’ he explained.
This work is another small piece of evidence to back up the theory behind Prof Kremer’s interesting research.
“On behalf of the entire Indian coffee ecosystem, the finest shade grown, hand-picked rainforest Coffees in the world, we congratulate Dr Kremer and thank Team PAD for their contributions,’’ Dr Srivatsa Krishna said adding: The entire coffee industry is proud of Dr Michael Kremer on being the co-winner of the Nobel prize for Economics.