How many farmers have smartphones? Do they have phones that will enable them to do much more than just send an SMS for accessing various agri services. The organisers of ‘Kisan’, one of the largest privately-organised agri show in the country, are hoping to find this out.
By Geeta Nair
Kisan Forum Pvt Ltd has for the first time developed mobile apps for the farmers. Farmers can register for the event using this app on their smartphones and pay the entry fee using the app which gets them a greenpass to walk into the show instead of queuing up for an entry ticket at the crowded entrance counters.
There is more they can do on the app once they enter the show. The app is an interactive networking platform, which will help them locate and meet like-minded farmers, meeting those with similar concerns or just touch base with someone with common interests. They can also meet any of the 300-odd exhibiting companies at the dedicated Kisan Samvaad lobbies using the app. If it works it could mean beginning of a new social network for farmers on the smartphone.
Earlier, Niranjan Deshpande, convenor of the Kisan agri show, used to connect with farmers using the humble postcards and graduated to inland letters. Later he tried out email-based registration for farmers but the limited internet and broadband penetration meant fewer farmers logged in through this route, he says.
While this option is still available, Kisan also experimented with SMS registration last year, which was accepted well by farmers. So to take this further and explore whether farmers have moved to smart phones, Kisan has taken the app route. Kisan has a database of eight lakh farmers. A database built over holding 21 such Kisan shows in the past two decades. They have a large sample to go by at the this year’s show. Around 1.25 lakh to 1.5 lakh farmers are expected to attend the show from across the country. As of now around 1,500 people have registered using the mobile apps. He expects the numbers to scale up closer to the event date.
One of the biggest challenges for agri companies is that the cost of reaching farmers across the country is very expensive and if the gaps can be removed much more can be done, says Deshpande. Better link with farmers would mean they will have faster access to technology, innovations and developments, explains Deshpande.
Earlier it used to take around five years for technology to dissemination but now this has been brought down to around a year for the technology or products to reach farmers at the ground level. With smart phones this could be further reduced.
The Kisan show will be held from December 10 to 14 at the International Exhibition Centre at Moshi in Pune on the Pune-Nashik highway. Neary 300 agriculture- related companies would be participating. This includes 40 international companies, most of them making agri equipment.
“There is hunger for technology. Farmers are more curious than before and are less resistant to change. They are now willing to experiment,” says Deshpande as he hopes the apps will be a new way to reach out to farmers and build a social network of farmers.