District At A Glance- How Few Initiatives at District Level Can Improve Administration
The importance of agriculture in the Indian context cannot be laid out into ordinary statistics because it is the living state of nature of most of the population. According to a recent study data analysis, around 70 % of the country’s population is dependent on the agricultural sector for their livelihood, directly and indirectly.
The country has been an agrarian economy from even before the colonial times and the scenario has not changed ever since because of the growing need for agricultural produce to feed the ever-increasing population.
In January 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the ‘Transformation of Aspirational Districts’. This programme aims at transforming districts of the country quickly and effectively to uplift the under-privileged sections of the society.
The broad contours of the programme are Convergence (of Central & State Schemes), Collaboration (of Central, State level ‘Prabhari’ Officers & District Collectors), and Competition among districts driven by a spirit of mass Movement.
While the government has done a lot in this sector why is it still wanting for more, eating up into the economy with the constant loan-waivers and still not benefitting the grower?
Though the comparison to NRC (National Register of Citizens of India) would seem like a farfetched comparison, it is a classic example of how an operational error or technical flaw can topple the political system, the complacency of the government and the quietude of thousands of citizens. What seems to be glaring in the information above is a floundering human error or a code gone wrong.
What also is blatantly obvious is a large bounty of opportunity, a missing zeal to set things right, a flair for hardships and a sincere yearning to set things right. For instance, most farmers do not have sight to the correct appreciation of their goods or the best value-fetching markets and undersell it to the established, contractual, unscrupulous wholesaler buyers.
There isn’t much the authorities can do due to lack of an immaculate governing system. Farmguide leapt to their feet and created National Agriculture Market (NAM), an electronic trading portal that networks the existing Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) mandis all over India in order to create a unified national market for agricultural commodities.
Farm-level Profile For Farmer-Centric Approach
Multiple handling of agri-produce and multiple levels of mandi charges result in escalated prices for the consumers without equivalent benefit to the farmer. These challenges are addressed by NAM by creating a unified market through online trading platform both for State and National level.
E-NAM enables farmers to filter for best options at the nearest mandi, for traders its offers the opportunity to access a larger national market for secondary trading. Bulk buyers, processors, exporters etc. benefit from being able to participate directly in trading at the local mandi level through the NAM platform, thereby reducing their intermediation costs.
The gradual integration of all the major mandis in the States into NAM will ensure common procedures for issue of licenses, levy of fee and movement of produce. In the long run, it will lead to higher returns to farmers, lower transaction costs to buyers and stable prices and availability to consumers.
The NAM will also facilitate the emergence of integrated value chains in major agricultural commodities across the country and help to promote scientific storage and movement of agri-commodities.
Mandis have completely shifted to online auctions in Suryapet, Telangana. Not only in Telangana, farmers in Dausa district of Rajasthan, which shifted to an online auction in February 2017, are benefiting from the eNAM service. So far, 72.12 lakh farmers, 53,130 commission agents and over 1 lakh traders are registered on the eNAM platform from 14 states.
What Gets Measured Gets Managed - Farmguide Initiative
Data analytics — In simple language, it is called ‘connecting the dots’. It doesn’t take a high- browed intellectual to know what is ailing your business and how you would heal it. But how feasible is it when your crop is infested, suffers a drought or flood and you are numb to the simple question of how you would pay the daunting debts or where the next meal is coming from?
Farmguide presents all its stakeholders; farmers, buyers, government, with qualified information to make intelligent choices to do better business. Farmguide provides market risk analysis and empowers the farmers' insight to help them make better farming operation decisions. Farmers can identify nearest warehouses and cold storage to accommodate their produce. The Mandis and harvest buyers can determine the yield and plan accordingly. Actuarial Science generates leads for farmers to choose best-suited crops and other farm inputs.
It is used to warn farmers against unfavourable weather conditions. The information will also be useful to input sellers, APMCs, Mandis and commodity exchanges. Farmguide captures the land size, income and household data to calculate agri-dependency index, which is used to determine how much a farmer is dependent on agricultural income.
This will help banks and insurance companies to devise solutions for smallholder farmers and livestock owners and improve the quality of insurance products for farmers.
Farm Insights Directing Action
These are some of the features of the extensive data bank and dip-stick analysis that benefit all stakeholders of the agricultural sector. With these and several other penetrative solutions, Farmguide has carved a niche in the agritech industry but that alone does not set them apart.
What sets them apart is their social welfare schemes like IVRS based advisory services, updates to a farmer from district HQ with important announcements and distress toll-free number to know about distressed farmers.
In India, the perils of the agricultural sector are akin to a national emergency and the distress of a farmer of consequential importance that Farmguide designates to the centre of its business.
