Innovations in Rural India

This article presents the various rural innovations in the country. It further

points out the need to have more frequent innovations in the rural sector to

make India shine in the real sense.

Innovation is the key to survival in this fast-moving generation where nothing is static except change. It is applicable to each and every aspect of human life irrespective of where you reside and what you do on this globe. You have to innovate, i.e., make proper adjustments and changes according to the growing needs and demands of the environment to be a part of this environment.

Any development is not possible without taking the rural masses into account. This is all the more necessary in the case of India, a billionaire country—no not in terms of money, but in terms of its population. Thus innovations affecting the rural population are at the heart of any developmental process in India where the majority of the population lives in villages. Agriculture has been the mode of employment of over 70% of its population. The agricultural sector contributes around 30% of the country’s GDP. Hence, it is quite obvious that for India to shine, rural India must shine as well; otherwise the country’s overall growth would fall well short of its potential. It’s more than half a century since we gained independence, yet there has not been satisfactory improvement in the rural sector. Some of reasons behind this are natural like the inconsistent monsoons and diverse climatic conditions, but most of them are man-made reasons, such as the middlemen standing between the farmers and the market and making away with the profits.

Despite all these ills, there has been a silver lining in the rural sector in the form of Amul, ITC e-Choupal, Parry IndiaAgrline to name a few. Further, this article discusses the evolution of a few innovative processes that have centered on agricultural and allied activities in rural India. It discusses, at length, the evolution and structure of the Amul pattern of cooperative farming, ITC e-Choupal and Parry IndiaAgriline—three important innovations that have brought the rural economy closer to its target markets, also releasing its capacity for overall development.

Amul

In the 1950s, the life of farmers in the Kaira district of Gujarat was as miserable as that of its counterparts in other parts of India. These farmers were frustrated with the erratic climatic conditions, lack of proper infrastructure and the continuous exploitation of strong middlemen who reaped the benefits of their hard toil. Though they had the resources of making additional income from milk and other dairy products, due to the absence of a proper distribution network, farmers were forced to sell these products at throwaway prices to the usual traders and the strong middlemen who controlled the marketing channels. The continuous exploitation by these traders led these farmers to a win-lose situation. Then, the farmers realized that this exploitation cannot be stopped until and unless they pooled in their resources and marketed their own products. This led to the formation of Amul.

Today, Amul has become a household name. With the support of professional organizations and other NGO’s, what started with a cooperative movement in Anand in the 1940s has grown from one village to around 10,755 villages; from a few liters of milk to 6 million liters of milk a day and various other milk products; and the most important point, from a few farmers to more than two million farmers spreading all across Gujarat. It has become a firm which is collectively owned and controlled by the farmers. The logistics adopted by Amul in collecting more than 6 million liters of milk per day from 10,755 village cooperative societies spread throughout Gujarat and then processing it to produce the final packaged milk and milk products have set new standards in logistics management in the country. Amul is a pattern of cooperative farming which is collectively owned, operated and controlled by the farmers.

ITC e-Choupal

E-choupal is an innovative way of applying new technologies for the poor farmers by ITC—one of India’s leading corporate houses which had a diversified product portfolio encompassing cigarettes and tobacco, packaging, specialty papers, paperboards, hotel, retailing, IT and agri-exports. ITC’s e-Choupal helps the farmers to take decisions regarding when and whom to sell their products in order to gain more profits with the help of the Internet by analyzing the ratings of different mandis. The echoupal initiative was aimed at network villages through the Internet in order to procure agricultural products from the farmers for export purposes in an efficient and effective manner. E-choupal has enabled farmers to sell their produce more conveniently and at

much better prices than what they used to sell to the private traders and the middlemen. Starting with just six e-choupals in Madhya Pradesh in June 2000, ITC has successfully managed to establish over 1,200 echoupal centers in almost 6,500 villages in India by December 2002. It has educated the poor and uneducated farmers on how to conduct e-commerce transactions with ease and to get themselves out of the clutches the middleman. Echoupal has helped farmers in pricing their crops and taking decisions on when and where to sell their produce to get more profits. Similarly, ITC in its e-Choupal initiative offers additional services like selling seeds, fertilizers and crops insurance to support its profitability.

Parry IndiaAgriline

In order to bridge the structural void of the villagers of the Cuddalore district of Tamil Nadu, EID Parry, an agricultural company in Tamil Nadu, set up a first-of-its-kind portal—indiaagriline.com— through which farmers can access both personalized and general information on a host of topics related to agriculture and allied activities. The portal provided detailed information on six crops which included sugar, banana, cashew, tapioca and groundnut. The exhaustive and detailed information ranged from farm practices and farm advisory services to pricing details for different crops in the nearby markets, weather forecasts, etc. Personalized information like the payment details of a sugar company to farmers could also be accessed on the system once a farmer registered himself with the kiosk. Bridging the digital gap not only eased the flow of information of all kinds but also facilitated market transactions, industry competitiveness, new innovations and positive social transformations. The credit for this technological breakthrough can be attributed to the joint efforts of EID Parry and n-Logue Technologies.

Parry IndiaAgriline is devoted at improving the life of the farmer by bringing technology to his doorstep and acquainting him with information that would help him increase productivity and enhance his lifestyle. Experts are convinced that this new value addition in supply chain management of agriculture products will have a great impact on the growth of the rural economy

Conclusion

It’s true that India lives in her villages. Rural India holds great potential for development as it is the source of livelihood for more than two-third of the country’s population. Exploitation by the private traders and middlemen accompanied with the farmers’ lack of information on issues pertaining to their livelihood are serious obstacles on the path of rural development. There is a need to take strong steps so that the primary producers in agriculture could break the shackles of the middlemen and become self-dependent and strong. Slowly, but steadily, the farmers are realizing the importance and potential of technology in their farming process.

Undoubtedly, the story of Amul, ITC E-choupal and Parry IndiaAgriline are phenomenal and mind-blasting. But such a large country with only a couple of attempts in innovating the rural sector seems like an , ‘oasis in a vast

desert’. Now it is the role of government and social organizations to make farmers aware of the need and potential of technology in agriculture. If the farmers of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu can do it, then there is no reason why the farmers of other places cannot.

In this dynamic and ever-changing market environment, farmers in India should be abreast of the latest information for their agricultural inputs. One or two successful stories won’t solve the purpose for you. It needs a revolution in the rural sector. Greater transparency in the farming process is the need of the hour. The faster the government and farmers understand and realize it, the better for them and more importantly for India to shine properly