DESIGNING OF DATABASE FOR INDIGENOUS TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE IN AGRICULTURE

Abstract

In our Indian Agriculture, the traditional knowledge or local knowledge has very good prospective for novelty specifically at the grassroots level. Several knowledge of the traditional tools are on par with the recent knowledge and have been delivered by the native societies with comfort and self-support. Agriculture practices through indigenous are mostly organic in nature, do not cause loss to soil and water, air and also safe to human beings. These practices differed considerably from region to region depending on rainfall, soil type topography etc., and show frequently modifications by the local farmers. In current years, there has been a growing scientific knowledge in these indigenous practices as a source of comprehensive ideas that could lead to sustainable use and management of land resources. All ITKs published information is in scattered form and accessing this information is difficult due to its present form in hard copy. In view of the above it has been observed that there is an immediate requirement to documentation and preservation of the ITK of different agro climatic zones in a database format. This format should contain the description and basic set of information related to ITK resources are information of the communities, beliefs on spiritual faiths, implements used in agriculture, resources for house construction work, investigation in farming and health care, natural resources in plants and animals, human resources and proficiency in trained artists, teaching and learning and communication of information. Efficient use of ICT application to developed a portal was developed by ICAR-NAARM, using PHP and MYSQL, which provides information resources on ITK resources of pan India for crops viz., cereals, millets, pulses, fruits & vegetables, spices, medicinal & aromatic, plants etc. The portal developed by the academy is user friendly and it provides all the information about ITK resources of India. This will be a resource base for the multi-stakeholders viz. researcher, academician, policymakers, farmers and NGOs etc.