Navagoviya Project

Website for the Farmer

www.navagoviya.org

Status

A new project. Once established, will be in operation on its own requiring only maintenance inputs

Goal

To develop knowledge of the farmer on modern agriculture entrepreneurship accessed through world-wide-web at www.navagoviya.org

Objectives

To avail technological knowledge in agriculture production both in Sinhala and Tamil medium
Create interactions amongst farming communities, agricultural academics and agricultural professionals

Target Group

Rural farming communities and any other interested individuals or organizations

Methodology

The primary methods for achieving the goal and objectives of this project are:

Contents designed and developed by a professional panel of experts involving from the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka
User friendly format design by a reputed firm
RUHUSEF team for the organization and logistical inputs
Periodic update of information, new technological advancement through a panel of experts
Publicity of the launch of website through seminars, workshops, print and electronic media

Short description of the product/project:
“NavaGoviya” meaning the New Farmer is a Sustainable and Modern Agriculture Knowledge Development Initiative aimed at developing rural farming communities & transforming rural Telecentres to Modern Agriculture Digital Knowledge centers.
Online digital knowledge in the local languages re-trains farmers on sustainable and modern agriculture helping to improve productivity in rural agriculture.
The Navagoviya Project is a multi stakeholder partnership, initiated by CIC Agri businesses, in 2008 with partnership assistance of ICTA e-SDI funding. The content was created by Professionals from the Agriculture Faculty of the University of Peradeniya and Technical implementation was done by e fusion pvt ltd.
The Curriculum Contents included subjects on sustainable modern agriculture providing essential knowledge in crop planning, land preparation, soil management, pest control, harvesting, and packaging as well as business and marketing areas.
The content was developed in electronic form and integrated into an e learning system by adding photos, animations, videos by developers and hosted on www.navagoviya.org
Four days of residential training on e-Agriculture was given for selected Telecentres by Agri professionals using the content and navagoviya.org portal and seminars for rural farming communities were conducted at Telecentre communities to create awareness on e learning of modern agriculture.
The course offered by navagoviya.org was aimed at becoming a foundation course in sustainable modern agriculture and a stepping stone for transforming Telecenters as Rural knowledge centers for farmers.

Long description of the product/project
As an agricultural country Sri Lanka needs sustainable agriculture development and food security. Facilitating the use of information and communication Technology (ICT) for the agriculture sector enables the concerned players in this field to exchange opinions, case studies, experiences, good practices and resources related to agriculture, and to ensure that knowledge created is effectively shared and used within a country. Sri Lanka is facing certain” Agriculture Challenges” that must be resolved as soon as possible with the development of e agriculture resources using ICT.
CIC Agribusinesses currently managers over 10,000 Acres of farms and has a 20,000 strong farmer network that produces different products to the local and overseas market. As a leading Agriculture company in Sri Lanka, CIC Agribusinesses is strongly committed to carry -out this Navagoviya Project. ICTA e-SDI funding provided the basic financial environment for the project while CIC Agribusinesses carried out all the coordination and the administration.
The content of the Navagoviya project which was developed by professionals in the Agriculture Sector is globally applicable as it addresses the agriculture impact and issues of the environment, rural economies and empowerment at grass roots. The content and applications created on creative common attributions enables greater sharing and re-use by other communities in the world.
According to the statistics, about 80 percent of Sri Lanka’s population lives in the rural areas and most of them are farmers. “NavaGoviya” is a sustainable and Modern Agriculture Knowledge Development Initiative aimed at developing rural farming communities and transforming rural Telecentres to Modern Agriculture Digital Knowledge centers.
Navagoviya will provide online digital knowledge bases in local languages in Sinhala and Tamil to re-train farmers on sustainable and modern agriculture helping to improve rural agriculture.
Among the challenges are to develop a simple curriculum simplifying modern agriculture and making the awareness on farmers to encourage them to e learn using Telecentres. E- Learning technologies and modern content technologies were introduced to Navagoviya e agriculture web site with appropriate texts, videos, animation and pictures under the authorization of Professionals in Agriculture.
Residential workshop and seminars for Nenesala Telecentres operators and several trainings to the rural farmers minimized the digital gap as they acquired the much needed assistance from the Nenasala Operators at Telecentrers. The model can be easily replicated in other Telecentres and geographical areas. A similar approach can be applied to schools, Farmer clubs as the delivery locations like Nenesala Telecentres with a network of farmers.
We wish to form and develop a common flat farm through navagoviya.ning where any interested agriculturalist can participate and share his or her expertise, views and concerns for their own betterment and for that of others.

The course offered by navagoviya.org was aimed to become a foundation course in sustainable modern agriculture and a stepping stone for transforming the rural knowledge of the farmers.
The Navagoviya Project will be incorporated with our other CSR projects as we plan to achieve integrated benefits to encourage rural farmers using in house Agri expertise and resources. The CSR arm of CIC Agribusinesses, CIC Manussakama will organize Agriculture mobile units with IT facilities at 20 locations regionally in order to provide extension services to the rural farmer. A dedicated and sincere agriculture representation and communication supported by the information and communication Technology (ICT) would be one of its primary objectives. The Navagoviya Project created online e agriculture course in Sinhala and Tamil local language using e learning technologies and modern content technologies. The e agriculture portal will combine with the Navagoviya Social Network links to top Agriculture professionals and rural farmers through proposed IT units in addition to Nanasala Telecentres . This will be an important role in developing rural agriculture partnering with the private sector, academics and the government.
In short, “Nawagoviya will be the starting point for a much broader and more ambitious e agricultural initiative that aims at bringing various regional to global level agriculture related solutions.

What were the background & motivation behind this project?
The Vision of CSR projects of CIC Agribusinesses is centered around uplifting the rural farmers living standards and transforming farming as an acceptable and honorable profession.
Transfering Advanced Technology to the rural farmer is one solution to be adapted and online e agriculture project “ Nava Goviya” with local languages (Sinhala and Tamil) using e learning technologies and modern content technologies was created for that purpose.
Partnership assistance of ICTA e-SDI provided the funding for the navagoviya e agriculture web development activities.

Delivery (Content/Services)
The creation of online content base in prime local languages (Sinhala and Tamil) opened e learning to rural farmers helping them to use Telecentres to improve their knowledge in modern agriculture and improve their agriculture best practices
The most significant Initiating is language e learning for farmers. Online agriculture related solutions from Agri expertise will be organized.
Telecentres operators have been trained and local seminars have been conducted to make farmers aware of e learning of modern agriculture.
Actual experiences of farming and appropriate advance technology were transferred for developing rural agriculture through contribution of private sector, academic and government support.
The platform was created for sharing the Agriculture information, knowledge, experience and practices of farmers, and other interested parties through developing of www.navagoviya.ning.

Project is unique and innovative
Nava Goviya project is unique because this basically operates under local languages and further development of the e agriculture content can be depicted and agriculture principles and subjects can be easily understood by the farmers
This Nava Goviya website can be shared by any farmer or interested parties. CIC Agri businesses which has done lot of research in the fields of agriculture can shared with rural farmer
Based on the deman,d areas can be developed for Comprehensive agriculture courses through Telecentres or online by contributing the services of Agri professional
Navagoviya project has big potential to bring regional to global level solutions for related agriculture issues.