About Tripura
The state of Tripura is one of the eight states of the North-Eastern region of India, situated in 22056' N – 24032' N latitude and 90009' E – 92020' E longitude with a total area of about 10491.69 sq. km. only. Out of which about 60 percent area is under hills and forest cover. Tripura with its vast inland fishery resources offers tremendous scope for developing the fisheries sector. The state is having abundant fisheries resources of about 34416.94 ha water areas consisting of lakes, rivers, tanks, ponds, reservoir etc. of which only 26534.18 ha area are utilize for culture fisheries activity (Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Planning (Statistics) Department, Govt. of Tripura, 2018).
Prime Focus:
To empower the fish farmers by providing the right information at the right time through mobile based agro-advisory system
Implementing Partner
College of Fisheries, Central Agricultural University (CAU), Lembucherra, Tripura West, Pin Code: 799 210
The Broad areas of Agro-advisory services include:
- Fisheries advisory services (Scientific aquaculture practices along with disease management and water quality parameters, value addition, processing and post-harvest handling and marketing for Indian major carps, exotic carps, catfishes, minor carps, prawn etc., composite fish farming system, different fish-based integrated farming systems, fish seed production, breeding and management of ornamental fisheries and aquarium maintenance etc.)
- Animal husbandry advisory services (Livestock production management practices along with vaccination, deworming, disease management, processing, post-harvest handling and marketing) for important domestic animals such as piggery, dairy, goatery and poultry.
- Crop advisory services (Crop planning, variety selection, package of practices, post-harvest and value addition etc. for major field crops in Tripura)
- Horticulture advisory for plantation crop, spices, vegetables, fruits. (Crop planning, variety selection, package of practices, post harvest& value addition, marketing etc.)
- Advisory system for maintenance and repairing of important agricultural implements e.g. tractor, power tiller, sprayer, duster, aerator etc.
- Input information on (Seeds, fertilizers, plant protection measures, organic manures, bio-pesticide, animal breed, animal feed, fish seed, fish feed, lime, farm implements and machinery etc.)
- Information regarding different services of financial institutions (for banking, loan and crop insurance etc.)
- Information services on different agricultural schemes and subsidies available for the farmers of Tripura.
- Developing need-based radio programme to be broadcasted through All India Radio, Agartala, Tripura.
- Production of instructional videos on need-based topic and arrangements of phone-in programme with experts and farmers in coordination with Door Darshan Kendra, Agartala, Tripura, which will be telecasted by Agartala, Tripura.
- Training and demonstration of advanced farm technologies.
Name of the Location/Districts to be Covered
- West Tripura
- Khowai
- Sepahijala
- Gomati
A fishery to be catered through IIDS (Mobile Based Advisories)
- Indian Major Carps (IMC)
- Cat Fishes
- Prawns
- Ornamental Fishes
No. of Farmers to be registered with detailed farm information (Farm Ponds / Farm Land / Crops)
- No. of Farmers: 7500
Type of problems (broad category)
- The occurrence of Transboundary Disease like Epizootic Ulcerative Syndrome (EUS), Tilapia Lake Virus (IMC)
- Unavailability of fish seeds
- Unavailability of economic and quality fish feeds
- Inefficient market linkages
- Lack of knowledge on scientific fish farming
- Lack of financial facilities
- Flood prone areas
Common Diseases in each Category and Symptoms
- IMCs: Fin rot and Tail rot, Epizootic Ulcerative Syndrome (EUS), Dropsy, Different parasitic diseases
- Ornamental Fishes: Fungal and Bacterial diseases (Cotton Wool disease, White spot disease etc.)
Current Status of Extension
- Mainly State Dept. of Fisheries, KVKs and College of Fisheries, CAU (Imphal), Lembucherra, Tripura.
Need of Mobile Based Advisory and its benefits to Farmers
- The state is having both plain and hilly areas. The villages in hilly areas are located in the far flanged remote corners. Moreover, fisheries information is hardly accessible in both plain and hilly areas due to limited manpower in the state line departments and underdeveloped communication facilities. It is quite difficult to reach in time if any problem arises. If mobile based advisory can be applied in local languages, it will help the farmers for pursuing scientific management practices in fisheries.
Need of Mobile Based Advisory for Subject Matter Specialist
- It will help the extension functionaries / Subject Matter Specialist to get information from the farmers immediately which will help in providing advisories in time.
Training and Workshops to be held in 3 years
- Training to Farmers: 10-15 (avg. 25 farmers/training)
- Training to Project Staffs: 8-10
- Fish Health Camps: 8-10 (avg. 100 farmers / camp)
- Project Awareness/ Sensitization Programme: 40-50 (avg. 50 farmers per workshop)
Methodology
- Registration of farmers: Each farmer has to register himself/ herself with the assistance of Field Coordinator to get the desired services by providing required details; e.g. fishery advisory services they need to provide their farm details. Each farmer will get a unique ID number and all the transactions will be recorded in the database. 7500 farmers will be selected from four districts depending upon the number of farmers in the villages.
- Registration of Fish Ponds: Details of the fish ponds of the registered farmers to be registered separately. A format will be developed in consultation with other project partners and Digital India Corporation, New Delhi to record the information of the fish ponds. Specific tag number (Identification number) will be provided to the each pond. Whenever the farmer calls for any problems in his fishery farms, he/she will be asked to identify the respective fish ponds with the Tag no. and the expert will come to know the details of the history of the ponds from the system.
Tentative Information regarding Fish Pond to be recorded- Area
- Depth
- Type (Seasonal/Perennial)
- Existing Culture Practice
- Soil and Water Quality Parameters (Soil texture, planktons, pH, Dissolved Oxygen, Alkanity, Hardness, Organic Matter, NPK etc.
- Awareness / Sensitization and Training Programme: To aware the people regarding the project activities, encourage them to take the benefit of project in maximum extent by the beneficiaries, continuous awareness/sensitization programme and need-based training progrmme for the project farmers will be conducted. Moreover, fish health camps will be organized for the benefit of the farmers in the registered villages.
- Delivery of farm advices (Pull Based): To get the advice/information service the farmers will call to the lab. Farmer’s queries will be answered by the technicians at advisory labs who will also record. If the Level-I expert at the lab is unable to answer the query, he/ she will record the query and transfer to the Subject Matter Specialist (Level-II experts) at the concerned centre of the University and the specialist will answer the query virtually.
- Delivery of Information Services (Push Based): The system will also aggregate location-specific data from various reliable information sources and disseminate it in the form of text and voice messages to the registered users depending on the user’s specified (as mentioned during their registration to the service) time and mode. This information would be aggregated by the system as well as manually by the project staff.
Content (Available)
- Bulletins, folder, training manuals, leaflets on different aspects of fisheries and aquaculture are available.
Development of Content (Proposed) – Small Videos / Voice Messages, SMS, Calendar etc in local language
- Small video clips on different cultural practices.
- SMS (Text and Voice) on fishery advisories
- Fish culture calendar
- Fish Culture Practices
- Nursery rearing
- Grow out production of fish
- Fish based Integrated farming System
- Use of Floating Aqua Feed
- Fish Seed Production
- Ornamental fish seed production and rearing
- Fish Diseases
- Induced breeding of fish
Status of Mobile availability with Farmers (Feature Phones / Smart Phones)
- Almost all the farmers or family members are having phone (Either smart or feature)
