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Press Centre
Infy to link farmers, retailers
Financial Express
Nanda Kasabe
Pune, Jan 24, 2008
Soon farmers will be able to provide the requirements of large organized retail firms on their cell phones, thanks to Infosys Technologies. The IT giant is developing information, communication and technology (ICT) enabled technical and supply chain management application that will connect farmers with retailers. A prototype is expected to be ready in six months and it will be piloted at the Nandini Cooperative in Sangli. Farmers will be able to grow crops that will be stocked on retailers shelves instead of randomly planting crops with the hope of find buyers at the local mandi.
“Small farmers in India often work in isolation and have little idea about market requirements. If one farmer grows sugarcane, his neighbour does the same. Often the crop is hit by a pest attack and the farmers are left helpless,” PS Krishna Kumar, director, IT systems and applications, IGP (implementation grant proposal) ACDI/VOCA, said.
ACDI/VOCA is a Washington DC based development consulting group that manages USAID’s growth oriented micro enterprise development (GMED) project in India. The agency has commissioned Infosys Technologies to develop a solution to help connect these farmers to the supply chain. The objective is to create a mobility-based system that will bring farmers, buyers and suppliers together.
“When perfected, the new system will enable private extension agents to source queries from, and direct technical information to, vegetable and fruit farmers with high-end mobile phones. These phones will be linked to a central data base and individual experts and farmers will be able to directly obtain solutions to their problems,” Krishna Kumar explained. On the supply chain management front, the system will link retail buyers directly to farmers, suppliers, truckers and others. The needs of the retailers will be transmitted to the farmers through field extension agents before the planting season via mobile phones and the Internet,” Donald Taylor, programme manager, India GMED, USAID, said.
“This pilot project will be attempted between the farmers of Nandini Cooperative and Radhakrishna Foodland. We are in talks with other retailers focusing these applications and linking them to the small farmer,” he said.
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