e-Pest Surveillance and Advisory Project – A success story towards operationalizing near-real-time pest management by the farmers of West Bengal

The of e-Pest Surveillance and Advisory Project funded under RKVY was implemented in 2550 farmer’s plots of 510 moujas of 51 blocks covering 5 districts namely Bardhaman, Bankura, Nadia, Howrah and Hooghly to render pests, diseases and natural enemies surveillance, monitoring and subsequently sending weekly advices to them during Kharif 2013 and Rabi 2013-14 covering rice, mustard and potato crops, with the active participation of scouts, monitors, Govt. of West Bengal officials and scientists of BCKV. More than 90,000 text messages were sent to the registered farmers of the entire study area during the implementation period. The project has brought a paradigm shift in the mode of delivery of pest management advices directly from experts to crop growers with minimal delay and has generated huge location-specific information on the incidence and spread of pest and diseases of rice, potato and mustard across the study area. The service has been popular among the farmers, as indicated by the fact that more than 2500 new farmers of the study area showed interest for the inclusion of their names in the message list. In this short span of one year, this project has received many accolades in the form of National and International Geospatial Excellence Award for utilising geospatial technology in a unique way for solving the crop management problems of the farmers in near real-time.