SourceTrace, a company that provides data-driven digital solutions to the agriculture and allied sectors, is collaborating with the Small Farmers Agribusiness Consortium – Haryana (SFACH), extending its digital solutions to support the horticulture farmers of Haryana.
According to the press release, SFACH is committed to providing a responsive and effective mechanism for the welfare of the farmers and farm-based communities and recognizes the need to harness the growing power of IT for the betterment of life of the farmers and management of farmer producer organizations (FPOs) in Haryana. To deploy its digital solution, SourceTrace will first create a database of the 100,000 farmers who are associated with SFACH, of which 49,000 have already been enrolled until now.
“The vision of SFACH is to strengthen farming community through extensive use of Information Technology in agriculture; we envisage a scenario wherein every farmer and member of FPOs shall be able to access the benefits of IT. The SourceTrace platform will help us provide speedy and easy access to horticulture service, leading to a better quality of life for the farmers in the State”, says Arjun Singh Saini, managing director of SFACH.
The market for bumper production
SourceTrace’s market linkage solution brings producers and buyers onto a common platform, enabling buyers to procure fresh produce directly from the FPOs and farmers. Some of the crops currently listed by the FPOs are potatoes, tomatoes, cabbage, cauliflower, onion, gourds, citrus fruits, and cut flowers. SFACH encourages potential buyers to register on the SourceTrace portal. Once registered, the buyer, who could be an exporter, a small mandi buyer, or a local retailer, can look up the required produce using filters such as district, crop, variety, grade, and FPO and shall be an effective tool of traceability as well. The quantity of available produce will be displayed in real-time along with the contact details of the concerned person from the FPO. A prospective buyer can then directly get in touch with the FPO and close the deal.
According to Ranbir Singh, joint director at Small Farmer Agri-Business Consortium Haryana, “Source Trace solution can contribute significantly to strengthen backward and forward linkage in the supply chain of produce and commodities through proper crop management, produce management and direct marketing.”
Venkat Maroju, chief executive officer of SourceTrace, says, “We are pleased to extend a solution that will help the farmers of Haryana showcase their harvested produce which can be easily accessed by buyers both internationally and domestically.”
Pest and disease management
Another difficult problem that the farmers face is the lack of timely advice on managing pests and diseases. SourceTrace launched a farmer app that connects farmers with experts for crop-based advisory. To help farmers utilize the app effectively, SourceTrace has designed it keeping in mind the need for flexibility and easy access to experts. To this end, the app works in the local language Hindi as well. The farmer would first need to download and install the app on android mobile. Once registered, the farmer gets access to the pests and diseases menu. Pictures of major pests and diseases are preloaded into the system, in collaboration with and approval of the Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR). In case it matches with the pest or disease that the farmer encounters in the field, ready recommendations are available. If not, the farmer can click a picture of the affected plant and upload it with comments. This information hits the server and is directed to the expert or scientist from the agriculture department, who responds with an advisory delivered through SMS to the farmer.
As a next step, SourceTrace proposes to establish a payment gateway using its DATAGREEN platform, through which orders for horticulture produce can be placed and payment can be transferred from buyer to producer, thus becoming a one-stop digital platform with multiple solutions.
