The Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) is implementing a pilot project to provide farm-specific agro advisory services for farmers.

"For this purpose, individual farmers database is being developed for 1,200 farmers in Tamil Nadu, for developing the farm specific agro-advisory services," TNAU Vice Chancellor Dr Murugesa Bhoopathi said.

Data is collected directly from farmers with a new software developed jointly by IIT, Chennai and TNAU, as part of Rural Technology Business Incubator project, he said in his paper at a conference in Delhi on 'e-agriculture initiatives in TNAU to accelerate agriculture production and improve livelihood of farmers'.

There is a need to develop such a digitised database for all the 82 lakh farm families in Tamil Nadu for rendering farm specific advisory directly by scientists, Bhoopathi said.

Farmer can use their mobile phones to contact experts in TNAU, who in turn give solutions to them based on already available, real time data base, he said.

TNAU is also taking the initiative to document successful farmers' case studies, with the help of journalists and publish them in national dailies for the benefit of farmers, Bhoopathi said.