Indian IT major Infosys Technologies has developed an information and communication technology-enabled application to help small farmers integrate their business with large retailers and improve efficiencies in agro supply chain. Infosys has developed the application in partnership with the US-based non-profit development organisation ACDI/ VOCA that would help in cutting down farm-to-market losses by 30% to 40%, the company said here on Tuesday.
The application will minimise inventory requirements, reduce wastes and allow retailers and farmers to be better integrated. “Maintaining on-time, programmed delivery of fresh produce from a large and scattered production base is a complex and critical operation. This solution gives the organised retail sector access to a reliable smallholder production base. It thereby decreases farm-to-market losses, currently estimated at 30% to 40% on certain products,” head of India business unit Binod H R said.
The application tackles supply chain management from profiling of farmer clusters to crop planning, scheduling, tracking and forecasting and allows farmers to access technical information including database searches for data and images, access to region-specific weather updates and market information - daily sales volumes and average prices.
Currently, there are 1,700 smallholder farmers integrated into organised supply chains through this application and over the next five to eight years, it is expected to cross a million farmers.
The application is accessible on handheld devices and enables the wholesaler or retailer or other intermediaries to optimise cost by allowing large procurement, efficient transportation and enabling intelligent crop production management, the company added
FE: Feb 27, 2008
No comments:
Post a Comment