Uberization of Agriculture: What Does It Mean for Indian Farmers?
23 September 2021 Farming, to this day, is an activity faced with a lot of trials and tribulation, and with little predictability of how well the crop will turn out or if it will result in a loss at the time of harvest. ‘Uberization’ is a term derived from the popular commute option in our fast-paced world, ‘Uber’. The aim of the Uberization project carried out by FarmERP is to assist Indian farmers in initiating and formalizing market linkages, ultimately translating into a better price for their produce, analyzing data accurately, and garnering the right value of production. The ‘Uberization of Agriculture’ increases profitability and alleviates uncertainty among smallholder growers.
Vegetable growers in India are primarily smallholders that have to tackle various problems on a day-to-day basis. Vegetables have a short crop duration and require a full proof execution plan backed by the right resources. The crop cycle, no matter how small, requires the accuracy, attention, and care throughout the cycle. Inadequate knowledge or information and unavailability of proper planning has made vegetable farming unprofitable for smallholders.
The Uberization project empowers vegetable growers in the State of Maharashtra considering crucial challenges like excess rains and the brunt of COVID-19. The project covered 24 organic and conventional vegetable crops. It armed vegetable growers with end-to-end services inclusive of a package of practices, irrigation, pest and disease management, climate-smart advisory concerning nutrition, quality control, and harvesting. The mobile application was used by farmers and field officers to capture all the required data. Complete crop traceability was ensured by the labels pasted at farmgate. This allowed the buyer to know more about where their produce has come from.
The steps to vegetable cultivation were mapped by the following steps:
- Geo-tagging of grower plots were administered to gain basic information, and pictures of farms and produce were put on top priority.
- Creating a task calendar for a particular plot and notifications to growers on daily basis.
- Climate-smart digital advisory services (DAS) in the local language are pushed as and when required, forewarning the growers on resource requirement.
- The grower can monitor his expenses and budget for the crop cycle.
- Agronomists intervene for specific advisories.
- The buyer can offer purchase rates after determining the quality of produce.
- The sale is finalized only once it’s agreed by the grower, procurement, and packing.
The buyers, growers, and FPC/FPO had access to this entire process over a single digital platform. They could monitor the progress with their credentials. Meanwhile, buyers also keep track of what the farmers harvest. This allows the buyers to understand/track the quantity and quality of produce beforehand by looking at the real-time crop images that are updated regularly by the field officers. These tracking mechanics help the buyers analyze the products and pre-decide the exact quantity and best buying rates.
All in all, the Uberization project, and multiple other such empowering activities for farmers, have enabled them to increasingly hone their independence and pave the way forward for new entrants within the stakeholder market.
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