abhishreshthaa
Abhijeet S
The e-choupal idea cuts through the basic and historic problems crippling Indian agriculture: fragmentation of agricultural land holdings, the difficulty of access to those holdings and high levels of illiteracy, all of which make agricultural extension work unviable, making it difficult and daunting to adapt and apply the findings of laboratory research to agricultural cultivation.
E-choupal makes use of the physical transmission strengths of the current intermediaries – the only efficient option in the context of India’s weak infrastructure, making them an integral part of the value chain. Yet, by using the real-time multicasting ability of the Internet, these intermediaries are bypassed to deliver information and market signals directly to the farmers to enhance the long-term competitiveness of Indian agriculture.
Under e-choupal, ITC has set up Internet kiosks in villages. These kiosks are managed by the farmers, selected from within the community and trained, known as ‘Sanchalaks’. At the kiosks, the ‘Sanchalaks’ help the farmers to readily access the different agricultural crop-specific Web sites that ITC has created in the relevant local language.
The farmers can learn online the best farm practices for their crop, the prevailing prices and price trends for the crop in the Indian and world markets, the intricacies of risk management, and the local weather forecast.
The smallest individual farmers thus get the benefit of expert knowledge on the cultivation of their crop. E-choupal leverages the seamless workflow capabilities of IT to virtually integrate several best-in-class players along chain and offer the services on a single platform to every farmer.
The farmers can order quality agricultural inputs online. Virtual aggregation of such demand effectively reduces the cost of these inputs, again bringing the power of scale to even the smallest of farmers.
E-choupal links the Indian farmer to the consumers in local and global markets, by leveraging ITC’s time-tested and proven competencies in branding, marketing and distribution. Unlike in the alternative mandi channel (where the farmer discovers the price for his produce after he has incurred costs of transportation, therefore ending up selling even if he is not satisfied with the price), e-choupal helps the farmer take an informed and empowered decision (because the price is known in the village itself).
In the process, many non-value-adding activities like multiple transportation, handling and bagging, otherwise inevitable in the traditional supply chain, are eliminated, ploughing back a larger share of the consumer’s pie to the farmer.
Thus, through the virtual vertical integration (V21) model of supply chain management (SCM), e-choupal secures the scale benefits for India’s agricultural economy without displacing the small farmer.
E-choupal makes use of the physical transmission strengths of the current intermediaries – the only efficient option in the context of India’s weak infrastructure, making them an integral part of the value chain. Yet, by using the real-time multicasting ability of the Internet, these intermediaries are bypassed to deliver information and market signals directly to the farmers to enhance the long-term competitiveness of Indian agriculture.
Under e-choupal, ITC has set up Internet kiosks in villages. These kiosks are managed by the farmers, selected from within the community and trained, known as ‘Sanchalaks’. At the kiosks, the ‘Sanchalaks’ help the farmers to readily access the different agricultural crop-specific Web sites that ITC has created in the relevant local language.
The farmers can learn online the best farm practices for their crop, the prevailing prices and price trends for the crop in the Indian and world markets, the intricacies of risk management, and the local weather forecast.
The smallest individual farmers thus get the benefit of expert knowledge on the cultivation of their crop. E-choupal leverages the seamless workflow capabilities of IT to virtually integrate several best-in-class players along chain and offer the services on a single platform to every farmer.
The farmers can order quality agricultural inputs online. Virtual aggregation of such demand effectively reduces the cost of these inputs, again bringing the power of scale to even the smallest of farmers.
E-choupal links the Indian farmer to the consumers in local and global markets, by leveraging ITC’s time-tested and proven competencies in branding, marketing and distribution. Unlike in the alternative mandi channel (where the farmer discovers the price for his produce after he has incurred costs of transportation, therefore ending up selling even if he is not satisfied with the price), e-choupal helps the farmer take an informed and empowered decision (because the price is known in the village itself).
In the process, many non-value-adding activities like multiple transportation, handling and bagging, otherwise inevitable in the traditional supply chain, are eliminated, ploughing back a larger share of the consumer’s pie to the farmer.
Thus, through the virtual vertical integration (V21) model of supply chain management (SCM), e-choupal secures the scale benefits for India’s agricultural economy without displacing the small farmer.