View: Empowering the Indian farmer

By Shailender Kumar

The agricultural sector in India is intricately linked to the country’s overall economic health. Not only is agriculture the primary source of livelihood for 58 per cent of India’s population, the sector contributed 16.5 per cent to India’s Gross Value Added (GVA). Over the last few months, movement restrictions, supply chain disruptions, and labour shortages have impacted crop harvesting to a great extent. Despite traditionally being an agrarian economy, agriculture in India has been plagued by environmentally stimulated problems around low yield and crop failure. These have resulted from unpredictable climatic conditions or from its reliance on unscientific agricultural practices due to a lack of education. For instance, over or under-irrigation, lack of effective crop rotation, and sub-optimal use of fertilisers significantly impact soil fertility over time, thereby hampering yield levels. One easy way to address these issues is by embracing new technologies and modern techniques that are easy to deploy and that yield satisfactory results. Also, apart from the cultivation of crops, even the ability to store, sell, and transport agricultural produce has a huge bearing on farmers’ profitability.

The Government of India has set a target of doubling farmer income by 2024. It is taking various measures and a multi-pronged approach to support farmers — right from sowing to harvest to sales. As part of its economic stimulus package, the Government also announced an investment of Rs 1.5 lakh crore to build farm-gate infrastructure and support logistics needs for farmers and related communities.


Through all this, technology can play an important role in agriculture across the entire lifecycle of the crop, right from choosing a suitable crop to selling it in the market for the right price.

Empowering Farmers to Make the Right Choice of Crop
From my interactions with customers that support the farmers’ ecosystem of services: be it banks offering farmer loans or fertiliser manufacturers or crop research institutions, it’s evident that one of the most important decisions a farmer needs to make is deciding which crop to sow. The right choice is dictated by a combination of various factors including soil composition (humidity, nutrients) and quality, environmental parameters (temperature, humidity, winds), rainfall, etc. How can a farmer source this legitimate information and source it timely?

The Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) in conjunction with its network of over 700 Agricultural Universities or Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) has been at the forefront as a hub for knowledge and resources on all aspects of agriculture. Their work includes soil testing, R&D on new seeds and saplings, new agricultural techniques among others. Given the scale at which ICAR operates, technology has played a crucial role in helping them fulfil their services towards the farmers’ ecosystem. The research organisation relies on cloud ERP technology that is equipped with modules to handle its procurement, collections, accounting, auditing, account management, HR, and payroll, among others, seamlessly.

Optimum Nutrition, Safeguarding Crops, and Maintaining Soil Quality
Did you know that technological innovations like cloud, artificial intelligence or machine learning, can help reduce the cost of agricultural production, optimize consumption of fertilizers and chemicals, and promote sustainable agriculture? Look at what Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Limited (IFFCO) has been doing. They have been advising farmers of the most beneficial cropping patterns using real-time and historical data (collected over 30 years) about demand and supply of agricultural produce.

Also, IFFCO combines meteorological data with soil fertility maps to deliver precise recommendations on fertilizer usage for specific crops in particular locations. Through its eBazar application, it provides farmers with fertilizers and biochemicals to enable them to harvest healthy crops. IFFCO also provides them advice on optimal irrigation, hostile weather warnings, handling insects and potential insecticides they may need etc. Additionally, the company uses a voice-assisted Oracle Digital Assistant – a first of its kind chatbot in the agriculture industry in India, to deliver information related to HR, financials, sales force and inventory to empower its 5,000 employees. Employee productivity has improved 30 % and financial transactions through the bot are happening at twice the speed. IFFCO is looking to extend this platform to its customers – to farmers.

IFFCO is also exploring the use of cognitive AI to build predictive models that can provide warnings to farmers against adverse weather conditions or other impending disruptions. Besides, it is using blockchain and IoT to track fertilizer delivery and trace it to the last mile.

Marketplace
One of the biggest factors hindering farmers’ profitability is the lack of direct access to markets that offer the right value for their produce. Typically, in India, middlemen eat into the profits from sales. To counter this, the Government launched the electronic National Agriculture Market (eNAM) in 2016 to help farmers sell directly to users, thereby ensuring that they get the right price for their produce.

Today there are over 1.66 crore farmers registered on the eNAM platform along with over 1.3 lakh traders, 73,151 commission agents, and 1,012 farmer product organisations. The network has been extended to include Village Haats and private Mandis (markets). This empowers farmers to sell their produce directly to processors, aggregators or wholesalers. This is even more relevant in the backdrop of the Government’s imminent move to allow barrier-free inter-state trade of farm produce, apart from direct and online sales. The Government’s decision to deregulate the sale of agricultural produce such as cereals, edible oils, oilseeds, pulses, onions and potatoes, by amending the Essential Commodities Act, 1955 will provide a big fillip towardsfarmers betterment.

The Government is exploring the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning to help enable virtual assaying of produce instead of requiring a physical assayer. This automates quality control and eliminates the extra step for the government to certify the quality of produce in a digital marketplace.

In addition, end to end digitization of the supply chain is required to ensure that maximum benefits of a robust marketplace are accrued. While we are moving in that direction, we need to accelerate our efforts to ensure that we reach our goal of empowering farmers and making agriculture sustainable.

In conclusion, agriculture plays an important role in the Indian economy, both from the perspective that it employs millions, but also from the point of view of India’s food security. Accelerating its digitization effort by facilitating actionable insights for farmers and empowering them with knowledge, and optimizing transportation and preservation of the produce should be top priority.


The author is Regional Managing Director, Oracle India