At a time of widespread agricultural distress caused by successive droughts, unremunerative farming and debt-trapped rural economies, a young man with his mobile app is showing how change can be brought in the life of farmers at the grassroot level.
In 2016, V. Naveen Kumar, who had no personal knowledge ofagriculture, was so moved by the suicide of a farmer in a village in his nativeWarangal district of Telangana that for the next three months he ran aroundlike a man possessed, meeting farmers to understand their problems. Heinteracted with agri-entrepreneurs and other stakeholders to find if there is away he can bring some change in the lives of the financially besieged farmers.
Today, over 1.24 lakh farmers in Telugu-speaking states ofTelangana and Andhra Pradesh use his mobile app NaPanta to avail a host ofservices, all free of cost. And this MBA degree holder is satisfied that he iscontributing his mite to bring some change in the way they practiseagriculture.
NaPanta, which was started in June 2017, saw, surprisingly,thousands of farmers download the app. The launch of the pocket-friendlyReliance Jio and the boom in use of WhatsApp brought more people on theplatform.
The app, which provides all farming-related information andcommunication in Telugu on a single platform, is significantly reducing thetime and cost of cultivation for a farmer in real time.
“I am confident that if farmers follow my platform,they will be able to save 20 per cent on expenditure and get 10 per cent extrayield. We can make 30 per cent difference,” V. Naveen Kumar, Founder andManaging Director, NaPanta, told IANS.
While the country has many apps to help farmers, there is nosingle app covering the entire gamut of agriculture activity ranging fromselection of crops to locate the market offering highest price for theirproduce. From advisory services and weather information to market prices ande-commerce, the digital platform offers the comprehensive agri eco-system.
The app has tools like crop expenditure (which helps farmerstrack their expenses in an organized manner), crop protection, weekly agroadvisory, agri forum, market price, agri e-commerce, crop insurance, weather,food processing technologies, and soil testing information.
A farmer can also buy or rent an agri-equipment as per therequirements of his crop cycle and can also sell his produce for the highestprice without any middleman.
The app also allows farmers to access real-time and dynamicinformation pertaining to daily market prices of 300 agri-commodities acrossover 3,500 markets, along with three-year price trend.
Currently available in Telugu and English, NaPanta Appprovides complete pest and disease management details, covering 90 crops andwith suggestions about 3,000 pesticide products.
Naveen Kumar, who earlier worked as a Credit RelationshipManager in ICICI Bank and later as Credit Risk Manager with HDFC Bank beforeco-founding apnaloanbazaar.com, a retail loan distribution services portal,says he is trying to build core competence among the farmers.
According to him, for all their requirements, small andmarginal farmers depend on third parties like distributors of the companies.
“With no knowledge of agriculture practices andrequirements of a particular farmer, they try to push their products for someextra profit and as a result the farmers either suffer crop losses or end upincurring huge expenditure.”
With agriculture extension officers of the government morefocused on clerical related activities rather than extending actual help, hebelieves there is a huge gap between farmers and the government initiatedactivity.
“Farming is not depending on a single advisory. It is acombination of various services. We identified all that a farmer needs in dayto day life and ensured that he has easy access to the advisory so thatwhenever he gets a doubt, he can get it cleared then and there,” he said.
Naveen said several states including Maharashtra and TamilNadu were showing interest in the platform. The app will be available in Hindiand Tamil in June-July this year. “If everything goes well in next 3 to 5years, we will have our presence in 7-9 states,” said Naveen, who heads afive-member team.
While the information on app will clear regular doubts offarmers, for specific doubts a farmer can ask questions to a panel whichincludes agriculture scientist and experts. IANS
NaPanta, an incubatee of International Crops ResearchInstitute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) also gets the institute’s help inbusiness activity, reaching the farmers and engagement with agri-inputcompanies.
The startup, which can sustain for next six months on itsown, is receiving proposals from different investment companies and Naveen sayshe will go with whoever is close to his idea.
With huge amount of data being generated on the digitalplatform, Naveen embarked on building big-data architecture with crowd-sourcinginformation. It is building database with information on major crops in aparticular area, major insects which affect a crop, cropping system, sequentialcropping model, pesticides and where the farmers sell their produce.
He is confident that this data will be a goldmine in the coming years. “This kind of crowd-sourcing information is not available in the agriculture sector in India. We are getting information from actual farmers and not third parties.” IANS