Gujarat government felt there was a need to transform data related to agricultural science, which normally remains restricted to labs and research stations across the agricultural universities, into technologies. The objective was to make the data available to farmers as technological interventions suitable to a specific farming condition.

The Gujarat government traditionally relied on individual, group and mass extension methods. However, it was extremely difficult for the government to engage personal sessions for 18,600 scattered villages in the state. Contrary to this, mass extension method was less expensive, but was not useful in providing guidance on a particular farm situation.

To overcome these challenges, the Government of Gujarat launched an online program e-Krishi Kiran Programme (Soil Health Card Program) executed by Anand Agricultural University. Designed to run on the Internet and Intranet (Gujarat State Wide Area Network), the data bank includes information on topics like soil-test values of individual farmer’s field, soil characteristics, meteorological data, etc.

It provides Soil Health Card (SHC) to each farmer to guide them about the soil conditions of their farms and cropping practices to be followed. It contains soil fertility index of each village on the basis of available soil analysis reports of individual farmers.

With the solution, the farmers can easily search for fertilizers recommended for a particular crop based on the nutrition status of a particular farm’s soil. They can also generate information on alternative crops and access state-wise, districtwise, taluka-wise and individual farmer-wise model action plans for crop production.