Dr. Naima Shaikh giving life to Agro Industry with eKrishikendra

 

Dr. Naima Shaikh, Founder, eKrishikendra & MD, AgriDigi Tech (OPC) Private Limited

I am the founder of eKrishikendra and the Managing Director of AgriDigi Tech (OPC) Private Limited. I completed my doctorate in Agri Business Management. I have expertise in agricultural project consultancy, project planning and management, policy and strategy making, content writing and data science, setup consultancy, market support, marketing solutions, module preparation, quotation and proposal preparation for clients, and conducting training programs.

 

AgriDigi Tech (OPC) Private Limited

AgriDigi Tech (OPC) Private Limited is a manufacturer, exporter, and service provider in the Agriculture and Allied Activities business. To be the most trusted partner of Indian agriculture by providing comprehensive solutions and ground level support to improve profitability, productivity and to enhance sustainable growth in agriculture.

eKrishiKendra is an innovative product of AgriDigi Tech (OPC) Pvt. Ltd. ekrishikendra.com is an agriculture portal that connects farmers, agri-input, agri-experts, agri students, and agri bazaars all under one roof. EKrishiKendra offers input availability at finger touch, customized trading of Agri commodities and, advisory for all the needs of farmers from experts and student’s asset as the future of Indian agriculture.

ekrishikendra.com portal opens through a web browser, mobile app and browser. It connects farmers, agriculture input industries, the agriculture market sector, agriculture experts and agriculture students on a single platform. It provides services through Web Portal, M-Commerce, Social Commerce, ICT/AI/IoT Technologies, Omni Channel, Buy and Sell Platform, B2B, B2C, C2B, C2C, P2P platform, Krishi Kendra centers (franchisee module). It is working in the FaaS, Precision Agriculture, Farm Input, and Market Linkage segments.

 

EKrishiKendra portal and App is working in 5 phases

• Providing to farmers

Farm timeline corner, Purchase corner, Government corner, Crop Sell corner, Solution corner, Training corner, Recent Event Corner

• Providing to Agri input industries

Pageline, Sale corner, Crop purchase corner, Dealer system, Ad corner, Discussion corner, Recent Event corner

• Providing to Agri Bazaar sector

Pageline Social Media Corner, Farmer Crop (B2C) Corner, B2B (Buy/Sell) Corner, Commodity Update Corner, Discussion corner, Placement Corner, Event Corner

• Providing to Agri Expert

Live Video Corner, Groupline Social Media corner, Advice Corner, Blog Corner, Discussion corner, Training Corner, Student Corner 

• Providing to Agri Students

Studentline, Social Media, Study Corner, Job Corner, Blog Corner, Discussion corner, Training Corner, Event Corner

 

      

        EKrishiKendra provides services both online and offline

 

: Online Phase:

* Web portal and M-Commerce

* ICT, IoT, Artificial Intelligence technologies

* Virtual Agriculture Linkage

 Farmer, Agri Input industries, Agri Bazaar, Agri Expert, Agri Student/Professional Network

 

* Farm TimeLine

 Providing services to farmers such as

 Quantify and analyze productivity across fields

 Monitor crop development,

 Detect crop health issues

 Localize treatments

 Optimize input usage

 Irrigation efficiency improvement

 Drive best crop practices

 

*Buy /Sell platform

 Agri inputs at farmer's doorsteps

 Direct marketing of agricultural produce

 

* Future Trading

 Services for Farmers and Agri bazaar sector such as

 Price discovery

 standardization

 Hedging

 

* e-Mandi

Online trading, bidding and retailing of agricultural products.

 

*Agri Business e-Podium

 B2B Market place

 B2C/C2B/C2C/P2P platform

 Dealer Network

 Marketing kit for Agri input industries

 

* Amenity for Agri students

  Virtual network

  e-library

  e-learning

  Job placement

 

* Agri Expert Gateway

Live farmer meeting

Live Dec and video library

Student room

 

 *Social- commerce

Timeline, Pageline, Group discussion

 

* Omni channel

Customer-Website, Mobile App, Store, Call center, Catalog- Product, price, promo, fulfillment, supplier, inventory, distribution centers, stores, vendors.

 

* Regular updating of agriculture schemes, news & exhibitions

 

: Offline phase:

 

*E-Krishi Kendra centers

Agri Input Selling

Farm Produces procurement (SCM)

Agriculture Services

 

Benefits from EKrishiKendra

Farmers

• The rate of adoption of new technology in the farming community will increase through collaboration.
• Farmers can sell their crop or product at each layer of marketing chain (merchants, markets or directly to end users) with multiple options.
• Farmers get customized services tailored to their specific needs.
• With the reduction in delivery time and transportation costs, farmers get input products at comparative price at their doorstep.
• Gets access to market information and market prices.

Agri Input Industries

• Makes it easy for sellers to pass on the benefits to farmers at low prices.
• Cross-boundary selling gives multiple benefits, thereby making it a saviour of search reduction and negotiation costs as well.
• It fills the gap in the B2C market through policy initiatives like direct purchase and e-trading.
• Gets higher profit margins as the cost of running a business is markedly lowers.
• Gains a stronger foothold in the multilateral trading system than competitors.
• Reduces the cost of creating, distributing, retrieving and managing paper based information by digitizing the information.

 

Agri Bazaar

• Electronically single agriculture markets introduce transparency and reduce intermediation costs.
• Facilitates efficient price discovery and transaction functions of the marketplace
• Real-time electronic auctioning of the commodities along with integrated assaying, weighing, storage and payment systems
• It induces the active participation of major stakeholders, enhances healthy competition and provides fair returns to farmers
• Processors would get qualified quantity of produces as per requirement
• It provides Agri bazaar functionaries an opportunity to learn, thereby eliminating the chances of being exploited

 

Agri Students

• Students acquire skills that meet their needs.
• Interface as a local chapter with Agri-Experts and Agri-Professionals.
• Gets consulting from experts at any time anywhere.
• Learns at own comfort and requirement.
• Gets access to updated content whenever they want it.
• Accesses the content an unlimited number of times.
• Helps in retaining information for a longer time.

 

Agri Expert

• e-education can be carried out at any place and at any time.
• e-teaching can be carried out without any strict time boundaries, it is flexible.
• Qualitative presentation of educational material.
• Delivery of Agri extension service.
• Access to small and marginal farmers.

What exactly is a "purchase corner" and a "farmer's crop sell corner"? What products are available on e-Krishi Kendra?

Purchase corner is a service provided to farmers where they purchase input products such as Seed, Fertilizers, pesticides, Agri tools & machinery, Agri technology, Nursery plantation, Veterinary/Animal husbandry products and Solar products.

From this facility farmers get:

• Highest standard of service and price benefit.
• Full details of companies/dealers products.
• Listed categories of products with prices and availability.
• Choosing products from a range of Agri inputs.

 

Farmers crop sell corner is a facility for farmers for direct selling and e-retailing of their farm products. Farmers upload and list farm products with price, quantity, category, subcategory, time period, description and photographs in crop sell corner. By using this service farmers can direct sell their farm products, create their own supply chain and trace a range of mandi, and mandi prices with one click.

 

Products such as Vegetables, Fruits, Spices and Condiments, Cereals, Pulses, Plantation crops, Cash crops, Flowers, Medicinal and Aromatic plants, Wood and Timber, Poultry, Livestock and Fishery are sold on EKrishiKendra platform.

 

Agriculture sector can avail of facilities provided through EKrishiKendra.

 

Farmers avail facilities through ICT, IoT, Artificial Intelligence technologies, Farm TimeLine, Buy /Sell platform, Future Trading  e-Mandi and EKrishiKendra Kiosk.

 

Agro Input Industries avail facilities through B2B market place, B2C/C2B/C2C platform, dealer network, marketing kit (advertisement, promotion, branding) and EKrishiKendra Kiosk.

 

Agri Bazaar sector avail facilities through online trading, bidding and retailing of agricultural products.

 

Agri students avail facilities through virtual network, e-library, e-learning and job placement services.

 

Agri Experts avail facilities through Live farmer meeting, Live Dec and video library, Student room, discussion forum and content sharing.

 

Agri Expert and eKrishikendra

Agri experts are Agri Extension officers, University professors, Government officers and employees, KVK directors, ATMA directors etc.

• Agri experts are connected to farmers to provide multidisciplinary agriculture related information and services.
• Creates posts in video, banner and text (multi language) formats.
• Discovers and shares knowledge with group discussion.
• Live video chats with farmers.
• Stores and shares offline videos.
• Gives accurate and quick solutions to the day to day problems of the farmers.
• Provides e-education to agricultural students nationwide.
• Delivers and manages educational content with an asynchronous system.
• Uploads audio-videos of agricultural experiments, thesis, research papers, seminars, conferences, etc.
• Provides training, information, solutions and suggestions on various activities, practices in the agriculture sector.

Farmers are mainly from rural areas and have little experience with digital facilities. In what ways do you connect with them?

With a surge in smartphone usage, the total active internet population is expected to reach 900 million by 2025, up from 622 million last year, representing a 45 percent increase. By 2025, there would be a greater number of internet users in rural India than in urban India. In India, digitization of the agriculture sector is well-accepted and recognized. In the last few years, the sector has undergone a massive digital transformation, with e-commerce leading the baton.

Recently, we have started to offer tech-enabled digital services primarily to those farmers who have access to smartphones and the internet. Farmers who do not have smartphones or internet access can access our services through EKrishiKendra centers, which are Agri-kiosks that work in direct selling of Agri-inputs, direct purchase of farm produce, and agriculture services.

 

Agro Student Registration

In India, even though the statistics are not so high, there is still a large scope for online education. In this situation, the education system, the teaching methods, and many other things related to the education field are changing, and this transformation has given birth to e-learning. E-learning in agriculture related fields is still in the early phases of adoption, but is being implemented more now than ever. Many organizations, institutes, universities and corporations are investing substantial amounts of time and money in developing online alternatives like e-learning to traditional types of education and training systems. So, our vision is to an create amenity of virtual network, e-library, e-learning and job placement for Agri students.

 

Facilities provided to students:

 

• Studentline Corner

Social Media activities (Like Facebook, Linkedin, Instagram, Twitter)

• Library Corner

Study materials are available which are uploaded by Agri-Experts and Agri-professionals/students.

• Classroom Corner

E-learning & Advice

• Job Corner

Make a profile and upload a resume

Search & apply for job as per requirements

Listing of nationwide Agri organization/corporation

• Blog Corner

A main content area with articles listed chronologically, with the newest on top.

A wide range of articles are organized into various categories.

• Discussion Corner

Create a topic in one of the categories.

Discussion - Within a forum's topic, each new discussion starts

Discussion between Companies, Dealers, Students and Agri-Experts

• Recent Event Corner

Get in touch with the big company network

National And International Agriculture Events, Conference and trade show update on regular base

• Workplace corner
• Video library

 

There is a market yard or mandi in every town to buy and sell farm products. What might be the advantage of online platforms for farmers?

 

Farmers opt for the online platform for the following reasons:

• Facility to post buy /sell leads online.
• Get directory at one touch.
• Better and real-time price discovery based on actual demand and supply.
• Transparency in the auction process, ensures a price that is commensurate with quality.
• Make own network as per requirement.
• Get in touch with agro food processing industries.
• Electronic display of the prices of produce in all other markets at one place.
• Get facility of e-auction, e-trading and e-retailing.