S. Jaswant Singh, Director Agriculture, Punjab
Today a new paradigm of agricultural development is fast emerging: old ways of delivering important services to citizens are being challenged; and traditional societies are being transformed into knowledge societies all over the world. The development of precision farming / agriculture emphasizes knowledge-intensity; hence the agricultural paradigm in the state will have to be recast to take advantage of knowledge availability to achieve multiple goals: of income, food, jobs, etc.
ICT has a significant role to perform in evolving such a paradigm. It can help in escaping from the narrow mindset of transferring technology packages to transferring knowledge or information packages. If this can be achieved, with the help of ICT, extension will become more diversified, more knowledge-intensive, and more demand driven, and thus more effective in meeting farmers information needs .
Department of agriculture has always been at the forefront of change in Indian agriculture. With this beginning we hope to bring in a change in the extension system for the benefit of farmers. The Department will try to bring in more resources and information on the website and the aim is to make it interactive in the future so that we have reach to every farmer in the State.