About
Background
Community participation in irrigation management has been prominent in India for many centuries. Some well known examples are phad, johad, cheruvu systems [click here for complete list and map]. In the last century these systems were taken over by the govt agencies and focus shifted to centralized planning.
In last few decades various social movements have happened to give back communities the right to manage natural resources and do equitable distribution of water[1]. State Governments have responded positively and enacted laws for smooth operation of Water User Associations. Today though they are not prevalent in all parts of country, these are seen as model projects and future direction for sustainable development.
Motivation for the project
In the recent years farmer communities have realized that they have to participate in the value chain from farmer to consumer to get better returns of their produce. Modern retail and rapid urbanization has thrown new challenges in front of them. This requires new tools and techniques like transport facilities, demand aggregation, cooling and storage, grading and sorting , crop planning, demand planning, marketing, processing etc. These functions are generally taken care by traders and industries. On the other hand traders have not shown keen interest in upgrading their operations to meet the challenges of mass urbanization. This has resulted into higher food inflation.
In the last decade various farmer groups have shown that they can take a larger role in value creation[2]. This has got push from modern retail who intend to cut down costs and improve efficiency by directly buying from the producer. Govt of India has come forward and created Producer Company Act to give a legal framework. All the new development projects in agriculture are modeled on producer companies as core units. In Maharashtra two such projects are Maharashtra Agricultural Competitiveness Project (MACP) and Convergence of Agricultural Interventions (CAIM)
The number of producer companies is still very small but the need and importance of it is strongly felt by the farming communities. producer companies are doing aggregate planning of inputs like fertilizers, pesticides, seeds, drip irrigation etc. and doing crop planning and demand planning in small way. These functions are alien to them which also requires skilled manpower. They do not have access to tools and techniques to work with modern retail and function as producer company. These problems have to be solved and a method has to be evolved to encourage growth of producer companies. This will facilitate in increasing the number of producer companies. The overall effect is beneficial to all the parties including consumers.
Goals and Objectives
The focus of this project is to enable producer groups with the help of technology. Make the field data available to planners, retailers and researchers. Mobile phones are widely adopted today. Phones are affordable and powerful enough to build complex applications. We are focusing on following use cases.
1. Reduce wastage and improve efficiency. Avoid distress sell by farmers:
Collect farmer, customer and crop data. Build simple tools for crop planning, data sharing and analysis.
2. Educate farmers on modern agriculture methods :
Build Knowledge Management repository and provide videos, standard procedures and discussion forum. Make the data available through mobile phones and internet.
3. Enable farmer groups to market their produce :
Make farmer <-> retailer/trader interaction hassle free. Enable farmers for direct sales. Provide tools for order, billing and inventory management.
Funding
This project has received a grant of 4,50,000 Rs. from IBM India Pvt Ltd. under its Smart Planet Initiative.
Technology
Download Technology Development Roadmap for details.
References
[1] See Pani Panchayat and Community Control, S R Hiremath
[2] Abhinav Farmers Club Pune, Devanadi Producer Company Sinnar, Waghad Agri Produce Company.
