For that technology will have to assist them in:
1. Selling there produce directly to end buyers, eliminating the middle men from the buying chain.
2. Selling there produce to buyers located at distant places.
3. Gaining access to better quality information based on which they can price their produce.
The good news is, it can!
Let me, with extreme pride, introduce Mandi Trades, a mobile app designed for farmers residing in rural areas of india. It is a location based F2S (Farm to Shop) Trading Platform for agricultural products. It makes available to Indian farmers markets outside of there local area & also connects them directly with buyers.
Result: The farmers are able to sell their produce at attractive prices that too with in the expected time frame - remember agricultural produce are time sensitive & they start putrefying if not sold with in a specified time period.
Mandi Trades helps the farmers take better quality decision by enabling them to:
- view the current prices of commodities in trade
- demand for listed products,
- weather and seasonal changes
- prices of rare items
Armed with this information, which till now was not available to them, a farmer using Mandi Trade is able to share:
- their produce information along with the pricing
- date of produce
- location of availability
- contact numbers etc.
Let us shift our attention to buyers - it gives them a map-based view of available produce with the produce info, sorted by his geographical proximity to the farmer. For the buyer it is easy to contact farmers, as his phone number is available on the app.
This app is available in English as well in local language - Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. Why? Our farmers are not fluent in English!
The only thing that the app didn’t enable is payment, as the laws do not allow that. The Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) rules mandate that the sale or purchase of agricultural commodities notified under it are to be carried out in specified areas.
Bottom line:. The Mandi Trades suite of apps is aimed at empowering the farming community. For generations, farmers in India have had little freedom in choosing markets and buyers for their produce. Now courtesy Mandi Trade, a technology-enabled solutions, it will help out Indian farmers to sell their produce directly to customers.
Result: It will improve there earning which will eventually improve the lives of their families.
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To read all stories by Rajesh Srivastava, please go here
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Comments
Shilpesh Mishra
I wasn't aware of this. Thanks for sharing this Sir. Technology is surely helping India grow. Hope this continues.
27 Jul 2015, 09.08 AM
+Read Replies (1)
Rajesh Srivastava
I too hope Shilpesh not only does this continue but many more initatives aimed at non-urban market see the light o f the day.
29 Jul 2015, 07.14 PM |
Dipayan Sinha
This is really enlightening, Sir! I had one little doubt though - does Internet connectivity and smart phone usage pose to be a barrier here?
27 Jul 2015, 12.33 PM
Rajesh Srivastava
May I share the data with you? The Internet penetration in rural India is 6.7% only. It is low. But in absolute number, as per IMRB study there are 49 million active internet users in rural india - an active users is one who accessed Internet atleast once a month. Further there are 25 million people in Rural India who accessed Internet once a week! Mandi Trades has 10000 registered users & has transacted business of Rs 50 cr. It is small ... but as the whole world gets connected by Space Internet (refernece my FB post of 3rd July '15) these apps will fly!
29 Jul 2015, 07.17 PM
Lava M
nice
30 Jul 2015, 09.14 PM