Use and Sustain ICT Innovations for bringing into Good Agricultural Practices

15th Sep 2014

Dr Satyaveer SinghSh Sanjay Verma

Component of Presentation

1. ICT Innovations in Agriculture2. Market Information Services3. Issues and Challenges in ICT4. Advantages in ICT5. Sustainability of ICT Innovations6. Practical Demo of Mob App 7. Integration with National Market and E-

trading8. Questions- Answers Session

ICT Initiatives in Agriculture

12 Clusters of Services - NeGP-A

4

Recent ICT Innovations in Agriculture

Agmarknet and State Agri. Mktg departments - India

E-Parwana, Soil Testing/Fertility Maps - Maharashtra

Farm Implements Delivery System, e-Jalnidhi - Odisa

Gramin Krishi Mausam Sewa - Haryana

Block Level Weather Forecast - GoI

Bhuwan of ISRO with Drought MIS - ISRO

E-Krishi Kiran and Soil Fertility Maps – West Bengal

Management of Micro Irrigation - Gujarat

NeGP-A Service Components - GoI

Soil Health Cards – GoI

Mobile application for field level data capturing (Govt/NGOs/Private)

Recent ICT Innovations in AgricultureNGOs/Private Sector

E-Choupal

Digital Green partners

Distance Education -Virtual Academy by CRISAT

Internet -Equipped Village Knowledge Centers and Mobile Mediated Voice

Communication Platform by CRISAT

E-Sagu

Reuters Market Light (RML)

FrontlineSMS

Connecting Dreams Foundation (Apna Tech Tree)

DigitalGreen.org

Centre of Excellence (COE) in ICT developed various information systems which linked research, extension, farmers, and markets.

Connected village knowledge centers to the internet that gave more than 40,000 farmers in India access to new and relevant information such as on climate change adaptation, crop rotation and pest management, to help them with their farming endeavors.

Open Access Repository of ICRISAT, which grants free access to documents and publications including journal articles, theses, and other research-related activities.

• eSagu is an IT-based Personalized agro-advisory system– Personalized • Provides Personalized agro-advice to farmer’s door-

step. – Regular• Advice is provided regularly (once in a week)

– Query-less: Farmer need not ask a question– Timely: Provides the advice within 24 to 36 hours– Cost-effective: Can be made sustainable with a nominal

subscription fee– Feedback: two way communication– Powered by IT: Record keeping, availability, reliability– Scalable and can be developed on the existing

infrastructure

eSagu is a PIS for Farmers

REUTER MARKET LIGHT

FRONTLINE SMS

Apna Tech Tree- UP

Market Information ServicesMIS

Why Market Information Service ?

Market Information ServiceFollowing liberalization agriculture is no more viable

Government withdrawing from direct involvement in agricultural marketing

Demand of F & V through out the year

Purpose of MIS

• Provide current and timely unbiased price and arrival information

• Provide competitive market access to sellers and buyers• MIS reports enable to seller and buyers to take better

decisions• Bring transparency and accountability in trade• Provide prices change behavior, both in the short term

and the long term• Help in calculating marketing costs between the farmer

and the market

Using Market Information

• Farmers can make use of Market information to ……– Reduce the risk associated with marketing– Decide where to sell– Check on the prices they are getting– Decide whether or not to store– Decide whether to grow “out-of-season”– Decide whether to grow different crops

Decide Where to Sell

• Sell at farmget;• Deliver to a local assembly market;• Supply a wholesale market direct;• Sell directly to individual retailers or to a large

companies that have many retail stores or supermarket

• institutional supply (Hotel, Hostel etc)• Sell to company with whom they have an agreement

or “contract” to buy the crop;• Sell directly to urban consumers

Deciding whether or not to store

• Perishable crops have relatively little choice about when to sell

• They have only advance or delay harvest by a few days

• Government market information has to provide the basic information of all storage house and their availability, charges etc

• Warehouse receipt mechanism etc

Decide whether to grow different crops

• Information of new varieties and modern farm techniques

• Seasonal price data will give farmers a good idea of the prices they are likely to get from out-of-season production

• Out-Of-Season crops– requires high investment;– Higher production cost– Some time lower yield

Deciding whether to grow different crops

• Diversify into new crops• Take advantage of market opportunities• MIS is to have close tie-up with the research

institutes/Universities/Policymakers• Extension department on region base module

prepared to create awareness among the farmers

Market Information Sources• Possible source of information

– Government Markets (APMCs)• Are independent and thus likely to be unbiased• Offer information over several years

– Do not always reach the smaller farmers– May not be up-to-date or information may be made available too late to

be of any use– May not be very accurate– Provide little analysis

Examples of Data collected on 12th Aug 15 in the Country

Arhar (Tur) Potato Apple

Common Problems with MIS

• Pay lot of attention to collecting large quantities of information but are then very poor to making that information available to farmers

• Pay inadequate attention to the quality of the data collected

• Collect and disseminate information too infrequently• Publish market prices but do not broadcast• Broadcast information on the radio/tv but in wrong

language and at wrong time for farmers to be listening• Poor content of information, such as date, variety, qty,

price etc

Why prices change

• Overall prices depend on ……– Supply, or what people are able and prepared to

sell at a certain price

– Demand, or what people are prepared to buy at a certain price

Longer-term price fluctuations depends on………

• Supply, which is influenced by– How much is farmers planted – The weather– Farmers’ own consumption needs– Whether farmers store or not

• Demand, which is influenced by– The price– The price of competing products

• Time of the year, – There is a seasonal prices pattern for most crops, particularly

annual crops

Calculating Marketing Costs

• Preparation and packaging• Handling• Transport• Losses• Storage• Processing• Capital Costs• Fees, Commissions and unofficial payments

Cost Calculation(Example)

Sn Item Cost per Kg Purchased (Rs)

1 Purchase of tomatoes from farmers (1 Kg X 5) 5.00

2 Packaging (0.5 ÷ 10 Kg box) 0.50

3 Labour employed by wholesaler to pack, load and unload 0.20

4 Transport to wholesale market (3.00 per box ÷ 10 kg) 0.30

5 Cost en route such as road blocks 0.10

6 Market Fee (1% of the value) 0.05

7 Market Agents fee (5% of the value) 0.25

8 Total Costs 6.40

9 Quantity Sold (0.9 kg X weighted average selling price of Rs 8 per Kg)

7.20

10 Trader’s gross profit 0.80

Issues and Challenges • Illiteracy• Cost of Data Collection• Seasonality• Small size of Land holding (85% SF/MF, 2.5/2.5-5 acre)• Serious band-width issues and connectivity problems• Major power-cuts from 5 to 12 hours every day• Non Customized Service Provisions• Acute shortage of project leaders and guides who could ensure

implementation of the ICTs at the grass root levels• Customer adoption• Handle massive amount of data • MIS for existing data to bring meaningful results

Advantages of ICT

• Easy to use• Low cost of alternate delivery channels (Mobile, FM Radios,

TV, KCC, Social Media, CSCs, Internet, Web Portal etc)• Language barriers stands Removed• Replication and scalability• Provides sustainability • Customised Services• Efficiency, Accuracy, Reliability and Accountability• Storage and retrieval data (Data Warehousing)• Reduced /minimal Corruptions

Can ICT solutions for agriculture be Sustainable?

• The answer to this question is “probably”, because ICT has been viable in other areas like– Manufacturing– Financial Institutions and– Western Farmers

• Modal of Reuters Market Light (RML)• E-Choupal

Solutions• In spite of very low internet penetration in rural areas and limited availability of

broadband connectivity, significant benefits have trickled down the poor by services delivered through mobile phones and community service centers.

• New ICT devices such as tablets and smart phones will certainly create new opportunities for user friendly information tools for better agricultural advice services and inform farmers about quality inputs and market access.

• ICT play important role in Capacity Building for the leaders in this field and Online Courses in Agricultural Research Extension.

• Applications delivering agricultural commodity market prices use a variety of channels, such as radio broadcasts, SMS alerts, web portals accessed via internet and KCC via phones of any kind.

• In e-Choupal, ITC utilizes the weather forecasts developed by government agencies, commodity prices gathered from different government mandis, and expert advice from several universities.

• Group Framing, Contract Farming help in making viability of the research

Public Private Partnership• Most successful projects are therefore implemented

through partnerships where different kinds of agencies bring their skills to the table.

• Financial sustainable PPP model to replicate and expand a voice message modal across the country.

• Multidisciplinary Institutions need to develop, use and sustain ICT for linking research, extension and markets.

• To significantly scale up ‘Knowledge to the poor’ revolution, research, development and private sector organization have to work together to develop and sustain new ICT innovations.

Factors for Sustainability

• Does the implementing agency have the capacity to implement and maintain the new ICT solution?

• Is the ICT solution scalable/replicable and viable?

• To make viable/sustain the ICT solution is required to integrate existing infrastructure and bundle the services at one place

Affordable Technology

• Add solution of new technology in storing, retrieval and maintaining data – Cloud and Data warehouses

• New Technology for Capturing dynamic data (android mob applications, barcode cards, etc)

• Dissemination tools like SMS, Social Media (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Whatsup), CSC, Mob, Radio, FMs, TV, ED, Projectors, web etc and bundle of information like crop, weather, market access etc

• Modals on Online Education Courses etc

Affordable Technological Solution of Sales and Purchase Data

Demo

Thank You