Telangana releases Agriculture Data Management Policy

HYDERABAD: With the vision of benefitting and enriching the agriculture sector of Telangana, The Government of Telangana, in partnership World Economic Forum, has launched a draft of India's first-ever comprehensive Agriculture Data Management Policy (ADMP) on July 6. It aims at creating a policy environment conducive to the systematic collection, management and usage of agricultural data, in ways that would support a wide range of use cases in the farm sector.

The policy caters to both government and non-government data and personal and non-personal data making it a first of its kind policy developed in the interest of Agri-Tech Innovation and Development in the country.

The ADMP would help in the protection of rights of the farmers and other stakeholders using agricultural data.

"Agricultural data" means such data that is created, collected, processed, shared or used in the agricultural sector be it financial data, production data or general agricultural services.

The Government of Telangana had been actively undertaking several Agri-Tech projects and pilots such as 'Saagu Baagu', Agriculture Innovation Pilots (AIPs), NeGPA, AI based Cotton Pest Management, and more. The Agriculture Department, in partnership with ITE&C Department, decided to formulate an enabling and regulatory policy that would into account the concerns of all stakeholders.

The policy was created around 4 stakeholders in the data chain viz. Data Principal (e.g., Farmer), Agriculture Information Provider (E.g. Agri Dept.), Agriculture Information User (E.g. Startups), Data Service Provider (e.g. Data Processing Companies) to ensure a comprehensive platform for all data related to the agricultural sector of the State.

It also introduces the requirement of "Consent" of Data Principal for sharing of its personal data in line with global data protection frameworks and the draft Personal Data Protection (PDP) Bill of India.

An inter-departmental committee was also being set-up to ensure all agriculture related data available with Agriculture Dept. or other departments can be easily shared in compliance with the ADMP. The ADMP is also defining detailed Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to ensure easy compliance by any stakeholders and go a step beyond being a high-level and complicated policy document. The SOPs are being drafted in detail in parallel to the public consultation process.

The policy is being published in both English and Telugu since it pertains to everyone across the agriculture ecosystem. Any concerned stakeholder may share their inputs and suggestions within 30 days i.e., by 6th August 2022 as per the format specified in the policy.