Overview:
Here with I’m writing on an application that we are developing which would obviously solve the real world problem and in our view it would be a boon for farmers, middlemen, buyers and sellers of agriculture products.
Introduction:
Everyone talks about developing super cool application that would indeed be helpful to advancement in technology, people talk about eCommerce start ups, travel start ups, tech start ups but yes here’s the stop for us. We all know agriculture in India adds value to a greater extent to the economy, and 80% of India’s population directly/ indirectly dependent on agriculture and its produce. When the top tech start ups can be introduced to angels, investors, speakers, tech heavy weights and many others why can’t we introduce our local farmers to experts, scientists and other top agriculturists from various countries? Why don’t our farmers be exposed to Masanobu Fukuoka and his practices? Why do we only talk of advancing the technology and forgetting the roots? Why can’t we have a portal which provides a-z information on agriculture and related activities? Yes this idea struck us and with proper market research, for that matter do I need a market research? We have been developing the below application.
Idea:
Crop calculator, Expert database, Photo and Video channel
How do we do it? This would basically be a web application with the plans of extending it to other platforms as well (mobile)
As a web application:
1. Overarching Search Bar on the Home Page: Searches and lists outcomes (based on matching tags, descriptions, ranking based on views/ likes/ endorsements etc.) from 3 separate databases of different types of content listed below:
a. Video Database
b. Photo Database
c. Expert Database
2. Additional buttons on the Home Page:
a. Five simple buttons on top for people to directly go to Home, Videos, Photos, Experts and Crop Calculators
b. At the bottom of the page: About Us, Privacy & Terms and Contact Us
3. Outcome of looking up a topic through the Home Page Search Bar: Search output shown as three columns (under videos, photos and experts titles) with up to 5-10 relevant search results shown below each column
a. For e.g. Let’s say a user clicks on a video on this search display page; immediately the video will be displayed with all the details as outlined in item 4 below; In addition, on the RH side, there will be a display that shows all other related videos, photos, experts and crop calculator based on tag word match
b. The idea is to hook a user with more and relevant content through all types of content, even though he/ she may have started off looking for only type
c. Here we make money as a start up: Furthermore, we will also have some paid banner ads from agri businesses which will be displayed on top of the page, above the search results; the banner ads will be tagged with the right key words so that they can be displayed in a search relevant manner
4. Videos
a. The idea is for users to upload videos to showcase certain tips/ findings/ innovations with the larger user base
b. Well tagged list of videos; each video has a brief description of what information it provides and is properly tagged with a set of key words so that it is easily searchable
c. Video should be uploaded in the website to a logged in user but should be universally visible for viewing so that all its descriptions and key words are search engine visible
d. When the video is uploaded into our site, it should not automatically be visible on the portal. Rather there should be an intermediary step wherein video should be approved on the back end by our specialist after which it is ‘allowed’ to be viewed on the site. This is to ensure that only the correct content with the right tagging is uploaded and no frivolous or scandalous (e.g. Porn etc.) videos are uploaded
e. Under each video, a logged in user can post comments and can also ‘like’ the video; need to ensure capability to respond to each comment by other users
f. The number of times a video has been viewed, commented and the number of ‘likes’ need to be displayed below the video, which increases the credibility of that particular video.
5. Photos
a. The idea is for users to upload photos wherein they are seeking information by sharing a picture or showcasing a certain findings/ innovations with the larger user base
b. Well tagged list of photos; each photo has a brief description of what information it provides or is seeking and is properly tagged with a set of key words so that it is easily searchable
c. Photo should be uploaded in the website to a logged in user but should be universally visible for viewing so that all its descriptions and key words are search engine visible
d. When the photo is uploaded into our site, it should not automatically be visible on the portal. And this follows the same rule/ procedure with video channel
e. As soon as a picture is uploaded, there would be a discussion thread that gets started automatically wherein users can post responses/ comments to what the picture says and can also specifically respond to each other’s comments
f. Under each picture, the number of views, comments and likes will be visible; again the credibility comes into picture.
6. Experts
a. A searchable database of experts on various topics relating to agriculture
b. Each expert is displayed with a picture, a brief resume of expertise, experience etc much like a LinkedIn display of career summary of a person
c. The profile of the expert is displayed on the LHS of the screen and on the RHS a logged in user can post a question or start a discussion thread with the expert. A logged in user should be able to post text based questions as well as upload a picture and ask a question related to that
d. The expert can respond to that user’s query
e. All expert discussion threads are search engine readable (public) but for posting any questions, a user must be logged in
f. Under each expert profile there will be an ‘ endorse ‘ button, so that a count of expert page views and endorsements should be visible when an expert profile is looked up and displayed.
7. Crop Calculator
a. A categorized list of crops for which we provide an operational and business calculator that essentially says what type of cropping, recommended inter-cropping, nutrition/ fertilizer, pesticides, water requirements, saplings etc. and also provides timelines and a rough business roadmap and returns
b. Essentially a standard calculator display where the type of crop, local temperature, aridity and soil type is chosen and the outcomes listed in a) above are displayed.
Conclusion:
With all these things coming under one roof I’m pretty sure it’s going to be a revolution in the field of agriculture, it would boost the confidence of people involved and would definitely help in the economy of the country.
Our vision is to make the entire Indian farmer community to be introduced to newer revolutionary methods of farming and there by increase their standard of living and also of other dependents on agriculture and farming, with the help of technologies, and networking. e.g: Video channel, which constitutes best practices from people across the globe. provide them a portal to buy/sell and much more!
#WannaWearRodinhood’sGoogleGlass!
Image Courtesy: https://www.babusofindia.com/
Smit Ganatra
It does look good on paper,but do the “80% of our population dependent on agriculture” have access to the internet? or even a computer for that matter.Even if a fraction of these do,how literate and willing would they be to use such a complicated sounding system?
Arjun Patel
The way mobile has revolutionized, the way the telephone was revolutionized during 90’s in Rajiv’s era by Pitroda, Likewise, we are now seeing a drastic change in the way the villagers/ farmers are transacting their day to day activities. Not all have to be literate to use our portal, what our portal does is having huge database of contents. Can’t we find one in a 10 who who would assist the remaining 9 in understanding these? Yes over the course of period we do have call centers put and provide all the info what the portal does. Smit, by these I make sense. There would be people, who would educate the unknown and pass on the message the portal does. I’m pretty sure of capturing most of the markets, BTW its not going to stay national, crop calculator holds good for international too, it includes types of soil, yield etc. Buy/ Sell portal where one can sell the product internationally. Internally we have all the docs prepared for each of the pros and cons with proper research from scientists and research scholars in agriculture.
Smit Ganatra
Here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia page of E-Choupal-
“Each ITC Limited kiosk having Internet access is run by a sanchalak — a trained farmer. The computer is housed in the sanchalak’s house and is linked to the Internet via phone lines or by aVSAT connection. Each installation serves an average of 600 farmers in the surrounding ten villages within about a 5 km radius”
Now compare this figure of 1 system in a 5KM radius to your estimate that 10% of the beneficiaries have access and are are literate enough to use the internet.This scheme is run by the massive resource-backing from ITC. You on the other hand,would be severely limited by resources.
I don’t intend to discourage you or anything,its a bold,commendable and a noble idea,no doubt. But the reality is that Internet is not really the way to gain penetration to provide agricultural solutions in our country as of yet.There are just way too many hurdles like lack of electricity,connectivity issues,literacy,computer literacy,acceptability,etc.
Arjun Patel
Smit, the application/ portal is not only confined to farmers from India and not only for farmers, it serves as portal for buyers, sellers, experts, one expert may interact with another. Broad based sense is for the welfare of Indian farmers, of course over the period of time we will have connectivity, electricity and everything. if its serves 5% of the 80% also, we might serve millions of farmers/ otherwise millions of farmers would be beneficiaries and it attracts people( agriculturists, florists, experts ) from all over the world.
Smit Ganatra
hmm I see your point,but the the thing of lack of infra is common across all these entities. Still,your point is valid that even serving a fraction of them will be a huge opportunity.I personally feel you should focus on the content only after knowing who will be the actual users for it!
Anyways,all the best for it! 🙂
btw,do check out ‘Reuters Market light’ and ‘Nokia Life Tools’. Something similar and related I feel
Arjun Patel
Yeah! thank you so much Smit, I’ll look into the points put forward by you. Yes I’ve checked those but some of the features you may feel similar but its not going to be like every other out there in the market. It will serve the purpose whole and sole, serve as many people as it could, such an user friendly platform and technology we are on with!
Subhash Manohar Lode
Dear Arjun,
how are you doing with this start-up, could you please advise if it is released
Regards,
Subhash