ICT in Agriculture and Disaster Management - Bangladesh ...

e-Information Center based ‘Batighar’ and ‘e-Krishok’ campaign was launched in
November 2008 jointly by of Bangladesh Institute ICT in Development (BIID),
Grameen Phone (GP) and Katalyst Bangladesh. e-Krishok was with the aim to deliver
the benefits of ICT to the farmers so that they can take advantage of ICT in each village
of Bangladesh in gaining access to new production techniques, technology and other
essential inputs like seed, pesticides and fertilizer. BIID and Zanala Bangladesh deliver
benefits of ICT to the Farmers. In the last few months, e-Krishok has grown to become
one the very best campaign to bring the benefits of ICT to rural Bangladesh (Singha,
2008).
Bangladesh Institute of ICT in Development (BIID) signed an MOU with Pacific
Bangladesh Telecom Limited (PBTL) to establish 500 “Batighar” by 2011, and to have a
presence in each Union Parishad by 2015. This “Batighar” project will utilize the
power of ICT to promote development of rural people, farmers by providing them
with information and advisory services and as well as create an enabling environment
for local rural enterprises to flourish. The two parties agreed to make Batighar a
leading and sustainable telecenter network in Bangladesh, where farmers will be
trained to use Batighar as the preferred point to receive agricultural related
information services. Besides they agreed to develop content for agriculture, MSME,
education, health, environment and citizen services (Singha, 2008).
Remote Sensing & Geographic Information System
A GIS is a specific information system applied to geographical data and is mainly
referred to as a system of hardware, software, and procedures designed to support the
capture, management, manipulation, analysis, modeling and display of spatiallyreferenced
data for solving complex planning and management problems. The GIS is
characterized by a great diversity of applications and concepts developed in many
areas- agriculture, statistics, computer science, graphics, mathematics, surveying,
cartography, geology, geography, database technology, resource management and
decision making etc.
A key characteristic of geographic systems analysis is that location of an observation is
known. The addition of location information adds value to the impact assessment of
agricultural research (Nelson, 2003). Wood and Chamberlin (2003) affirmed that one
attraction of spatial analysis is its capacity to represent simultaneously the spatial
variability of many key factors influencing agricultural production decisions and
performance: climate, terrain, soils, water resources, and the physical accessibility of
infrastructure and markets. In the same framework, these factors can be juxtaposed
against the spatial distribution of ecosystems, people, crops, livestock, and the threat
of pests and diseases. In theory, this analytical capacity holds great promise for our
ability to better understand the ranges and combinations of socioeconomic and
environmental conditions under which agriculture takes place and, therefore, to make
more informed assessments of the potential impacts of specific policy, institutional
and technological innovations. In practice, there are very few impact assessment
applications, at the meso or macro scale, in which GIS has played a significant
analytical role -rather than serving simply as a data mapping tool. Geographic
Information System and remote sensing are also used for Precision Farming or
precision agriculture
39