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India debuts 'agricultural Wikipedia'
Posted by: Prof. Dr. M. Raupp (IP Logged)
Date: January 26, 2009 03:13PM

By M. Sreelata

Indian scientists have launched an 'agricultural Wikipedia' to act as an
online repository of agricultural information in the country.

The government-backed initiative, Agropedia, was launched last week (12
January).

It aims to disseminate crop- and region-specific information to farmers and
agricultural extension workers ? who communicate agricultural information
and research findings to farmers ? and provide information for students and
researchers.

The website currently contains information on nine crops ? rice, wheat,
chickpea, pigeon pea, vegetable pea, lychee, sugarcane, groundnut and
sorghum ? but its creators say that all agriculture-related topics will be
eventually covered.

Content will be continually added and validated through review and analysis
by invited agricultural researchers, in a manner similar to that used by
Wikipedia and using open source tools, says V. Balaji, head of knowledge
management and sharing with the International Crop Research Institute for
the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), a partner in the project.

The site also houses blogs and forums where anyone can provide and exchange
knowledge.

The 85 million-rupee (around US$17 million) project is being implemented
over 30 months and is backed by the National Agricultural Innovation
Project, a six-year government programme intended to modernise agriculture.

The World Bank and the Indian government have provided the funding for the
project and six Indian agricultural and technology institutions are partners
in the project, providing information and technological expertise.

India is considered a global leader in promoting innovative ways of using
technology for farm and rural outreach, Balaji told SciDev.Net.

In the last five years close to 12,000 information technology-enabled rural
information centres ? some with Internet access ? have been established but
there is a lack of accessible agricultural information, he says.

It is hoped that even where farmers have no access to the Internet, the
Agropedia information can be used as a basis for radio plays, for example,
says Balaji.

Agropedia's lead architect, T. V. Prabhakar of the Indian Institute of
Technology in Kanpur, initially envisioned the website as the equivalent of
Wikipedia for global agriculture three years ago, but for now it will
concentrate on India-specific information.

He says that the initial phase of the project ? developing a mechanism to
manage the vast repository of knowledge ? is nearly completed, and the next
step is to develop ways to disseminate the knowledge.

www.checkbiotech.org



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