AMARAVATI: In an attempt to take digitalization to the agriculture fields, the union agriculture ministry signed an MoU with five top rated firms involved in marketing of agriculture produce through digital platforms. The move is aimed at increasing the revenues of the farmers by creation of better digital marketing infrastructure.

Agriculture Business Division (ABD) of leading FMCG-ITC has been roped in to implement the digitization project in MP. ITC has earlier pioneered a unique internet-based initiative called the "e-Choupal" for making various goods and services available in rural areas and for disseminating various crop advisory information to benefit farmers. ITC has been enhancing the versatility of e-Choupal with appropriate technological upgradation from time to time. Presently, ITC is in the process of developing e-Choupal in the form of a mobile application. ITC has proposed to build a customized 'Site Specific Crop Advisory' service with an objective to transform the conventional crop-level generic-advisory to a more customized site-specific crop advisory to the farmers using a digital crop monitoring platform, hosted on ITC's eChoupal 4.0 digital platform, supported by an on-ground handholding ecosystem. The proposal will be implemented in identified villages of Sehore and Vidisha districts of Madhya Pradesh and support wheat crop operations.

NCDEX e Markets Limited (NeML), the leading National Spot Exchange in India, will implement the project in Guntur district of AP, Nasik (Maharashtra) and Devanagere of Karnataka. NCDEX e Markets Limited (NeML) works with domain experts and offers trading platforms for trading in a host of commodities, both agricultural and non-agricultural to various market participants, primary producers including farmers, traders and processors. These trading platforms combine technological efficiency and market friendly trading features in a transparent atmosphere to make trading a rich and rewarding experience. With a national presence, the company has pioneered breakthrough initiatives like Mandi Modernization Program (MMP), ePledge and e-marketing. NeML's proposed digital marketplace would help enhance the livelihood of farmers and promote inclusive development in the agriculture sector particularly in AP.

NeML's four services including market linkages, aggregation of demand, financial linkages and data sanitization will serve as a foundation to build innovative agri-focused solutions by leveraging technologies to contribute effectively towards increasing the income of farmers and improve farm efficiency/efficiency of the agriculture sector in the country with an overall goal of doubling of farmers' incomes.

While Cisco will handle one each district in Kaithal (Haryana) and Morena (Madhya Pradesh), Jio will take up a project in two districts-Jalna and Nashik in Maharashtra. Meanwhile, 63Ideas Infolabs Private Limited, operating under the brand name Ninjacart, will develop and host the Agri Marketplace Platform (AMP), which will enable bringing together all the participants in the post-harvest market linkage. Nijacart will take up Proof of Concept (POC) projects in Chhindwara (Madhya Pradesh), Anand (Gujarat) and Indore (Madhya Pradesh).

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