There is a dire need to utilise collected unused data through innovative technologies in agriculture sector. These innovations are required not only to facilitate agriculture development, but also to promote a second "Green Revolution."
If policy and decision-makers will continue to ignore applying agro-informatics into their policies, the agriculture situation of Pakistan may deteriorate in the coming years, and the gap between rich and the poor will widen.
This was concluded on Sunday by Professor Ihsan Abdullah of National School of Computers and Emerging Sciences Islamabad, while talking to a seminar organised by Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) on "Applications of Decision Support Systems (DSS) in Agriculture".
Ihsan Abdullah giving the introduction of his innovative DSS, said, "DSS is a computer based system, which supports the decision making process, helping decision makers to form and explore the implications of their judgement, and hence make a decision."
He was of the view that after applying DSS into a small-scale case study in district Multan, it was proved that excess use of pesticides has caused reduction in the production of a particular crop of cotton. The common hypothesis is that pesticides are sprayed to increase yield but according to a FAO report, in case of Pakistan the whole theory is reversed.
From his research he reported that in Multan district most of the farmers did not spray pesticides on Thursday. During investigation an interesting fact came out that most of the people go to shrines on Thursday, so they don't spray.
He also referred from his research that big landowners are growing only 13 good varieties with the best available pesticides while the small farmers are growing more than 36 varieties of the cotton crop and using a large number of pesticides.
Agriculture department needs to learn how to communicate what and when. Innovations are required not only to facilitate agricultural development but also to feed ever-increasing populations and to secure livelihoods of the masses, Ihsan added.
During the Q & A session of the seminar, some of the audience asked that DSS cannot be applied at higher level because of the fact that most of the decision and policy makers are IT illiterate and are not aware of the advanced technology in shape of the innovation.
Replying to the question, Ihsan Abdullah said that decision makers from district to federal level has appreciated his efforts but has not shown interest to adopt it due to lack of funds.
One of the audience of the seminar commented that National Agriculture research Council (NARC) started a programme three years before to educate farmers for not to use pesticides excessively but official figures have shown that pesticide use has gone up manyfold.
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