Amidst the COVID-19 crisis and in the post-COVID landscapes where social distancing and virtual trading will become a new norm, we are successfully employing an ICT-driven model of Community-Supported-Agriculture (CSA) and Farmers Produces Organizations (FPO) for better transmission of information across the value chain.

We are committed to solving five problems in agriculture value chains:

1. Low share of economic value at the primary producer level
2. demand-supply mismatch and co-existence of geographically proximate regions with scarcity and surplus
3. poor transmission of quality and safety information along chains – i.e., low efficiency and transparency
4. long and fragmented value chains with several intermediaries only contributing to arbitrage between farm and plate
5. existing solutions are non-intuitive to weakest value-chain participants

Our proposed system, FarmPhone, is a smart IVRS-based, 24×7, vernacular, interactive platform that will bring together producers, agricultural laborers, primary processors for grains and pulses, traders and bulk procurers, resident associations (including housing boards and slum clusters) and transporters, and enable transparent and connected fair trade.

Adoption of FarmPhone will lead to at least 15% rise in farm income by direct consumer connection, stability of incomes from better demand visibility, while consumers will get better produce and prices. It will also ensure the agri-food system with smaller carbon footprints due to shorter and storage free transparent supply chains.