Phygital Agronomy - Empowering Millennial Growers

BACKGROUND Rice is a crop feeding around half of the world population and grown by Small Holder. Ageing farmers, and low farm income are on the rise and its necessary to engage young generation growers in rice growling programme. Bayer is committed to contribute to farmers' prosperity across the globe. Reaching out to small holder farmers of in rice growing countries of Asia has always been a challenge. PHYGITAL AGRONOMY To address the challenge of reaching out to small holders farmers, Bayer came up with the concept of Phygital Agronomy which is the combination of On Farm Learning Center and Digital Platform via AgrowSmart. On Farm Learning Centers with recent advancement in Crop System and Agronomy are made accessible to rice growers. It intends to drive engagement of growers, develop capability of internal team and and demonstrate sustainable practices around crop system. AgrowSmart, on the other hand is a digital intervention, providing contents of crop advisory, Expert articles and government programmes. The engagement activities on Learning Center in past three years across important rice growing countries of Asia include exposure visits of opinion Leader Farmers and Farmers Cooperatives to showcase the performance of tailor-made agronomic solution. On Farm training and capacity building of Input dealers and value chain partners helped improving their crop knowledge. Field tours of Academia, Regulators and Policy makers have been organized to gain the confidence of stakeholders. Digital classrooms and live streaming from Learning Centers for distant participants intensified the access in remote areas. Execution of 200+ Learning Centers across rice growing countries, reaching out to half million rice growers ,12000 users case of AgrowSmart are the key milestones in past three years to empowering young generation farmers in decision making process. Moving forward, Precision Farming, UAS seeding, Disease prediction model, Herbicide Tolerant Rice will be included in Learning Centers and AgrowSmart platform. We are stepping ahead with the concept of Bayer Forward Farming in partnership with Research Center and Industry leaders to create a substantial space in future. PUPOSE OF PRESENTATION AT IRC: Presenting Phygital Agronomy at IRC 2023, aims at drawing the attention of stakeholders for Inclusion of young farmers in rice growing programme and potential collaborations to jointly drive Forward Farming initiative