icegov2012 proceedings

Revival of Farming Community with M-Agriculture
ABSTRACT
This paper is aimed at developing an architecture which drives
scalable, replicable and commercially successful Farmer
Information Services. It aims at building services that impact
farmer’s income and productivity by reducing multiple
distribution channels. Using 360 degrees of communication
systems makes this system a unique system.
Categories and Subject Descriptors
Agriculture information systems, mobile technologies, supply
chain management, customer relationship management
General Terms
Economics, Reliability, Experimentation, Human Factors.
Keywords
Agriculture, Mobile Devices, M-Agriculture, E-Agriculture, Egovernment,
Farmer.
1. INTRODUCTION
As the famous saying goes “Any sufficiently advanced technology
is indistinguishable from magic” – a Law of prediction by Arthur
C Clarke, innovations in our agriculture information system can
create magic and wonders in lives of farmers and in turn in the
lives of general public. Agriculture is the basic contributor to
many countries GDP since several decades. But of late its
contribution is declining. For example share of agriculture and
allied activities came down from 35% in the early 1980s to about
32% in the early 1990s nose-dived in the reform era – down to
25% in 2000-01 in India. The rate of decline in agriculture’s share
was even faster in the second phase of reform. Between 2000-01
and 2010-11, the share was down by a huge 11 percentage point.
Nearly half of the farmers in India are in debts and funds flow
from the government towards agriculture is declining . At the
same time inflation is going up day by day, common man is not
able to afford a basic meal. Under these circumstances it is highly
recommended to introduce proposed e-agriculture model as part
of e-government services which will help farmer as well as
common man to buy and sell farm produce at reasonable price.
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ICEGOV '12, October 22 - 25 2012, Albany, NY, USA
Copyright 2012 ACM 978-1-4503-1200-4/12/10...$15.00
Swapna Veldanda
ERP Product Specialist,CSC
sveldanda@gmail.com
506
2. INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
REVOLUTION IN AGRICULTURE
The greatest impact of IT has been its ability to create linkages,
not its ability to process internal data into information. Network
integration allows departments/organizations to share information
and interact electronically across organizational boundaries. These
systems enable stakeholders in the redesign of their key business
process there by enhancing productivity, quality, speed,
flexibility, at the same time it is also wise to consider and address
network issues like Security, Customer care, Services pricing
calculations, Fee and tax collection and Partnership accounting.
2.1 Customization and personalization
The key to this system’s effectiveness is that it is “plug and play”
– our overriding objective is to remove complexity, allowing
service developers to focus their efforts on the service elements of
the transaction, rather than the technological elements.
This adaptability is particularly important in the world of
agriculture, where the differences from community to community
can be quite pronounced, both in terms of the services being
provided (large versus small or urban versus rural, for example)
and the level of technological sophistication.
2.2 Transition in Agriculture Systems
In many countries at least 50% of the farms produce is either
going waste or the farmers are selling at a cheaper price. At the
same time public is buying farms produce at astronomical prices
because of inflated prices by distributers. With this neither the
farmers are gaining nor the public. And it is resulting in
discouragement among farmers towards agriculture. The solution
lies in minimizing the cost so as to guarantee equitable access and
affordability. Countries should look at ways of harmonizing costs
and discuss with private sector. There has been progress in this
direction in some Asian countries, like India, where the
government has involved the private sector in investing in making
the mobile based services more affordable. Following picture
shows how the transformation took place from traditional
agriculture system to distributed connection model.