Audio Visual Aids Revolutionizing Agriculture In India

BANGALORE: Rikin Gandhi and his NGO, Digital Green, has developed a pilot project in which videos starring local farmers are made and circulated among other farmers with the aim to revolutionalize the agriculture landscape in India. The videos showcase better and improved methods of agricultural practices than the ones being followed in the region.
“I used to harvest around 50-55 kg of yield from my farm, but after learning from the videos, I now harvest around 70 kg,” exclaims Snehlata Sinha, one of the beneficiaries of Digital Green in Sardar Bigha village of Nalanda.
Gandhi’s NGO, Digital green encourages farmers to use camcorders and cameras to record healthy farming practices in the remotest villages with the help of government agencies. As the farmers themselves become a part of the videos that adds to the credibility of the films.
Launched in 2006, this iniative by rikin Gandhi has now reached out to over 6000 villages with the hope to improve the rural professional life of farmers.
 Gandhi, an aerospace engineer from MIT, never had agriculture in his mind when he started this initiative.
Due to a minor eye affliction, Gandhi’s application for the US Navy in its space shuttle program did not work out. After that chapter, he had the idea to use audio-visual equipments in a local NGO to engage farmers in cooperative agriculture-related projects. The final outcome was Digital Green.
“I spent a few months thinking what could be done and how can we intervene. I figured that featuring local farmers in the videos and enabling them to make their own videos will create a larger impact,” Gandhi says.

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