Agriculture is the most ancient organized activity of humankind. Indian Agricultural practices have unbroken tradition going back millennia and are interwoven into the cultural landscape of the subcontinent. Even today Agriculture plays a vital role in the Indian economy. Over 70 per cent of the rural households depend on agriculture. Agriculture is an important sector of Indian economy as it contributes about 17% to the total GDP and provides employment to over 60% of the population. Agriculture is the largest enterprise in the country. An enterprise can survive only if it can grow consistently and generate positive net returns from the enterprise. The net returns determine the level of income of an entrepreneur, farmer in this case. Agriculture is also the most complex of human activities which is characterized by: Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity (VUCA). VUCA is a popular term usually used to denote the environment around a business enterprise. Agriculture as an activity has each of these elements in much larger a proportion than a typical business enterprise and has much less resilience to withstand the effect of these. It is therefore important to consider Agriculture as a business with extremely high risk and uncertainty. Therefore, concerns in making Agriculture “entrepreneurial” are:
The relevance of appropriate Digital technologies to address the aspects of VUCA is particularly important to run the “enterprise” profitably. It is ironical that given the importance of Agriculture to our economy the fruits of digitization have not benefited this sector as much as it has done in all other areas of business and social activity. Mechanization has happened to a large extent but not digitization much less transformation. Before we examine the digital transformation in Agriculture, we need to keep it in mind that Agriculture activity at its core is a botanical and biological production activity and therefore subject to specific dynamics which are vastly different from a typical business enterprise. More importantly it serves a necessity of human existence and sustenance which is food. The digital Transformation of Agriculture and therefore at the farm level requires to be understood in terms of what Digital technology can do in real terms. There are three broad areas where digital technology can be deployed:
Agriculture” or IoT based farming Practices It is necessary to look at the information needs of the farmer at each stage of the Agriculture cycle from Seed to Crop. It can then be examined where and how digital technologies can help in the above-mentioned focus areas.
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As the COVID-19 pandemic forced the country to lockdown starting mid-March, farmers who were ready to harvest their rabi crops (such as wheat) are worried. Many of them hire harvester and thresher machines, but curbed transportation has made it difficult for both machines and labour to reach them. Baldev Shukla from Sondhri village says, “The only solution is that the government opens the mandis. Otherwise, we do not know what will happen to our wheat and who will buy it. We have invested all our money in the crop and many of us have taken loans.” Many farmers also anticipate that as harvesting starts and transportation resumes, crops will flood the market, leading to a fall in selling price—a double whammy for farmers.
The nation-wide lockdown imposed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic has left farmers in limbo. Jitendra Bangar, a vegetable farmer from Bhiwandi says, “I have a ton of cabbage in store and some standing on the field. The mandi has shut down and local traders are not visiting our village. We manage to keep the crop fresh by spraying water, but I am worried that with rising temperatures, the crop will rot.” Usually, traders come to the field to procure the vegetables in the rabi season. However, no transporter, big or small, is willing to travel as far as the village now. The mandis are bereft of buyers, and the handful who are there, are buying at significantly marked down prices.
