ICT to Improve Supply Chain and Increase Profits

In India the current process of moving products from rural farms to urban markets is marked by constraints that lead to income loss and waste. Farm-to-market losses account for as much as 40 percent for certain products, depriving smallholders and businesses of much needed income.

To improve efficiencies in the agricultural supply chain and maximize profits for smallholders, ACDI/VOCA and Infosys Technologies, Ltd., have joined together to develop an information and communication technology (ICT)-enabled application. The system will overcome the urban-rural divide by minimizing inventory requirements, reducing waste and connecting retailers and farmers through real-time communication.

“Maintaining on-time, programmed delivery of fresh produce from a large and scattered production base is a complex and critical operation,” Infosys Technologies CEO Kris Gopalakrishnan said. “This solution gives the organized retail sector access to a reliable smallholder production base.”

The initiative is being implemented under ACDI/VOCA’s Growth-Oriented Microenterprise Development Program (GMED), which is a $6.3 million, USAID-funded initiative that develops sustainable and scalable approaches to job creation by fostering the growth of micro and small enterprises. Through ACDI/VOCA and Infosys’s ICT application, farmers can access technical information, including searches for data and images, access to region-specific weather updates, and market information like daily sales volumes and average prices. The application can handle several thousand concurrent users while ensuring the data is secured through data-encryption.

Initial users will be the 1,700 smallholder farmers currently integrated into organized retail supply chains. Over the next 5 to 8 years, the usage is expected to increase to 1 million farmers. The system is accessible through General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) and Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) devices, which transmit and receive information through common communication networks.

ACDI/VOCA’s GMED Chief of Party Don Taylor said “The system ensures that there is no loss of data if connectivity or power is lost. The application also gives farmers real time access to agricultural experts, thereby improving farming technology at an overall level.”

Infosys has created the system from wireless software applications that are accessible on handheld devices. It was built on Infosys TruSync, a context aware, client-server solution that is designed for situations with limited or no network availability and allows for peer-to-peer synchronization between field agents without connecting to a central server. This allows agents to address information gaps constraining farmers and other supply chain participants to monitor and control the supply chain back-end and front-end functions. The system enables the wholesaler, retailer or other intermediaries to schedule farm production before planting and to take other steps needed for ensuring on-time delivery of products in order to meet customer demand.

Taylor said, “This technology intervention in the agricultural sector in India will reduce rural poverty in the long run.”

To learn more about GMED, click here.