Akshamaala Solutions: Leveraging Analytics and Data Sciences for Enhanced Farm Productivity
Ashok Prasad, Director
The agriculture sector in India needs to increase productivity to meet the increasing demand for food and to materialize profit for farmers. Informed and educated farmers are the need of the time for the agriculture sector to undergo sustainable development. Farmers need to avail exclusive information on their local problems of farm management and agricultural practices. Communication and information technology has made it feasible to address the farming issue at ground level and benefit the stakeholders in the agricultural supply chain. Akshamaala Solutions, uniquely positioned in agriculture technology segment, is leveraging communication technologies to help the farmers benefit from their agricultural yield and address other farm related problems. Akshamaala runs Unnati solutions for farmers to connect them with other farming organizations to facilitate smooth exchange of knowledge and information. Talking about the company’s aim behind Unnati centers for farmers, Ashok Prasad, Director, Akshamaala Solutions, says, “Unnati aims at improving the farm productivity in India since we have traditionally been lacking in productivity terms as compared to other farm economies. We believe that technology can be the only way to help achieve this considering that majority of the farmers in India are smallholders and there is no physical way to reach to all farmers in a cost effective way.”
Unnati centre acts as a knowledge hub to disseminate information on agricultural practices, products and methodologies to farmers. The centre aims to impart better efficiencies in supply management solutions and value added services. The centre is run by agriculture graduates who impart management skills of farm and supply chain to the farmers.
The services at Unnati centers are delivered through a combination of mobile applications on Android platform. The service centre is equipped with adequate communication technology gadgets. Unnati centre provides a tech enabled platform for all the stakeholders to co-ordinate with each other to facilitate the business of supplier side and purchaser side in the agricultural supply chain. Commenting on the business prospects for supplier side and purchaser side, Ashok says, “Supplier organizations get the benefits of a technology enabled platform to educate farmers on the correct usage of their products. Similarly, purchaser organizations can get involved right from sowing time with the farmers leading to identifying and propagating the most suitable varieties as per their needs and ensuring that only the relevant and right inputs are used by the farmers.”
Unnati farmers are provided an Aadhar enabled card which helps track all the interactions and builds up data for each farm activity. This makes it possible to customize information using intelligent systems. Systems are capable of providing complete traceability to output companies using intelligent systems backed by blockchain implementation.
Akshamaala Solutions has already developed a collaborative business model with sugarcane companies. The company has built its presence in the catchment area of sugarcane farmers through its Unnati centre networks. Ashok says, “Productivity of farmers has increased significantly after their association with the company’s Unnati centre.” Elaborating on the mechanism of this collaboration, he explains, “Farmers can now source pre-defined package of inputs based on the recommendations of sugarcane companies. Unnati platform is integrated with sugarcane companies’ tech platform to ensure that all farmer interactions in real time are validated against sugarcane database of farmers.”
Akshamaala Solutions envisions replicating this integration and collaboration to provide farmers in general with customized knowledge about the market and their farm using AI and data analytics. The company also seeks to implement solution for mapping and tracing the complete farming lifecycle and its output. The company is planning to expand its operations in collaboration with sugarcane companies across relevant states.
Unnati farmers are provided an Aadhar enabled card which helps track all the interactions and builds up data for each farm activity. This makes it possible to customize information using intelligent systems. Systems are capable of providing complete traceability to output companies using intelligent systems backed by blockchain implementation.
Akshamaala Solutions has already developed a collaborative business model with sugarcane companies. The company has built its presence in the catchment area of sugarcane farmers through its Unnati centre networks. Ashok says, “Productivity of farmers has increased significantly after their association with the company’s Unnati centre.” Elaborating on the mechanism of this collaboration, he explains, “Farmers can now source pre-defined package of inputs based on the recommendations of sugarcane companies. Unnati platform is integrated with sugarcane companies’ tech platform to ensure that all farmer interactions in real time are validated against sugarcane database of farmers.”
Akshamaala Solutions envisions replicating this integration and collaboration to provide farmers in general with customized knowledge about the market and their farm using AI and data analytics. The company also seeks to implement solution for mapping and tracing the complete farming lifecycle and its output. The company is planning to expand its operations in collaboration with sugarcane companies across relevant states.
