Telangana to call for Expression for Interest for Better Farming project.

The Telangana government will soon call for Expression for Interest (EoIs) in the next one-two weeks for the implementation of a five-year Saagu Baagu (Better Farming) project by deploying technology solutions.

The government is looking for partners to prove and establish transformation potential of innovative technological solutions along the value chain in the primary sector.

The Saagu Baagu Project is being led by the Agriculture Department in association with Professor Jayashankar of Telangana State Agricultural University (PJTSAU) IT Department and the World Economic Forum.

The project will cover crops such as cotton, chilli and turmeric for the kharif season and groundnut, bengal gram, and paddy for the rabi season.

“The project shall be implemented on the principle – ‘Think Big, Start Small, Scale Fast’,” a senior government official said.

This is an outcome of the AI4AI (AI for Agriculture Innovation) initiative launched by the government a year ago. The initiative resulted in the identification of nine frameworks and 30 use cases along four areas of the agriculture value chain – Crop Planning, Smart Farming, Farmgate-to-Fork and Data-driven Agriculture.

The State government tied up with CSIR India, World Economic Forum and a few ecosystem players, including start-ups to tap emerging technologies for making a difference to the agriculture sector.

The project is aimed at covering one lakh farmers over four crop cycles and build a scalable model.

HBL