Marketyard Agrisolutions: Bridging The Gap Between Farmers And End Users
Agriculture and its allied industries are undoubtedly the most crucial sectors that have been contributing to the growth of Indian economy with about 80 per cent of rural India depending on it for their means of livelihood. Having said that, sustainable and innovation led growth of Indian agriculture requires an efficient solution partner who can refurbish this space with innovative and cost-effective solutions and services. The new-age methods of agriculture management, coupled with technology have improved agricultural practices and productivity. Furthermore, explosion of mobile usage has been a game changer for solution providers and the end users in this space. Therefore, the main focus of digital agriculture solutions provider should be to deliver an all-in-one platform which can precisely meet the requirements of this domain and equip the farmers with new age capabilities.Comprehending the role of mobile applications in benefitting the Agriculture Industry, Marketyard’s mobile application has been specially designed and developed to provide a platform wherein users can buy, sell, and rent everything related to agriculture. Moreover, farmers and end-traders can connect to each other directly without reaching to middleman - ensuring fair price to the farmers’ products and also reducing cost for the end-consumers.
“Farmers expect a solution which is simple and reliable, wherein they can find all agriculture based information within a single platform. Therefore, we are striving to provide a bouquet of services, which aid in overcoming the challenges faced by the farmers, so as to provide a fair share of price without the involvement of middle men,” highlights Anil Laxman Lade, Founder at Marketyard Agrisolutions.
Marketing the Agricultural Produce
Most farmers in India face the challenge of marketing their produce and the unpredictable market prices. To solve these challenges, Marketyard with its mobile application provides a platform, wherein famers can sell Fruits, Vegetables, Flowers, Dry Fruits, Food Grains, Packaging Material, Fertilizers and Pesticides and many more, directly to the traders. This app supports a total of twenty categories that is inclusive of the ones mentioned above.
Enabling Buying, Selling, and Renting of Agricultural Equipment through a Simple Application
According to a recent research, 70 per cent of the country’s rural households depend on agriculture for livelihood. With a majority of them being small or marginal farmers, there is tremendous potential in the country for growth and increase in productivity through farm mechanization. However, a majority of farmers in our country, almost 85 percent of them have no access to farm mechanization to improve their yields and income. Therefore, with an intention to help these farmers improve their crop yield, Marketyard enables buying, selling, and renting of tractors, 2/4 Wheelers, Commercial Vehicles, and Irrigation Motors.
“We have a large network of traders, with balanced traders to farmer’s ratio. The major targeted users are the farmers (80 percent) and rest are the traders (20 percent). The most transactions are between farmers and traders, with few transactions happening between farmers themselves, i.e. selling of old tractors, purchasing of agriculture lands, animal husbandry etc.,” adds Anil Laxman Lade.
Range of Value Added Services
Innovation is highly crucial in today’s modern agriculture than ever before. With a vision of empowering the Indian farmers, Marketyard has built its mobile app that provides multiple value added services. These range of value added services further aid farmers and other stakeholders such as traders, manufacturers, and transporters to obtain the best services which also leads to increase in the frequency of smartphones usage in Rural India.
Starting from high-tech ways to find out the best quality of seeds to best agriculture processes, there is a lot that can be done using technology. The Crop info section of this app comprises the information about the crop, the crop description, soil type and the weather conditions that is good for the crop to grow, planting procedures, fertilizer management, water management, disease management and harvesting yield as well.
While Marketyard provides real-time information such as market rates of
various agriculture products across states, the News section provides current news reports from various agricultural fields to inform farmers about the current market trends. Furthermore, the app also enables jobseekers to find jobs in agriculture field. The Question & Answers forum of Marketyard’s mobile app acts as an interface for farmers to ask all sorts of queries and doubts related to agriculture such as information regarding pesticides and fertilizer usability etc. Not only that, the app also provides videos containing success stories of farmers, insights about all the upcoming events in agriculture sector, information related to govt. schemes and to top it all, it also provides land records (7/12 & 8A).
Experienced and Knowledgeable Agriculture Professionals
“Our team comprises highly qualified, experienced and knowledgeable agriculture professionals who are passionate about agriculture. Therefore, this is one of the major advantages that makes them understand the problems faced by farmers and enables them to provide useful solutions,” says Anil.
GUI that is User Friendly and Easy to Navigate
The importance of a good Graphical User Interface design can be the difference between product acceptance and rejection. If the end users feel it is not easy to understand, difficult to navigate, then the application ends up becoming a failure. Marketyard’s simple yet well designed mobile app can be easily accessed & navigated by farmers. The benefits of the services offered through the app, has attracted more number of users to use the app. This mobile app is currently available in English and Marathi languages. The company is planning to launch it in few other languages as well.
The Journey Ahead
Expense management is one of the major functions that every business should consider maintaining regardless of the size of the business. This applies to the agriculture sector as well. Farmers need to record their cost of production and other expenses since the record keeping practices shape their decision making process indirectly. In order to help farmers make the best decisions to improve their produce, the Marketyard development team is in the process of developing the ‘Expense Manager’ feature and adding it to the platform. This feature will help farmers maintain detailed records of their inputs, yields, and sales details. Moreover, information can be recorded on a real-time basis, which saves time by reducing the manual work.
“The marketyard development team is in the process of developing the ‘expense manager’ feature that will help farmers maintain detailed records of their inputs, yields, and sales details”
Another important and useful technology that allows businesses to buy and sell goods online is E-Commerce platform. E-commerce platforms help businesses to cut costs and cycle time, raise efficiency and provide more information, choice and value to consumers. In the recent years, e-commerce has found its way to the agribusinesses in India. Realizing the importance of e-commerce in the agricultural sector, the company is planning to develop an all-in-one E-commerce solution that can be integrated with the Marketyard mobile application.
“Having a strong foothold in Maharashtra, we are currently catering to over 225000 users, and within few months, we expect to further penetrate into neighboring states - Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat. We are also set to cover pan India by early next year,” concludes Anil Laxman Lade.
Experienced and Knowledgeable Agriculture Professionals
“Our team comprises highly qualified, experienced and knowledgeable agriculture professionals who are passionate about agriculture. Therefore, this is one of the major advantages that makes them understand the problems faced by farmers and enables them to provide useful solutions,” says Anil.
GUI that is User Friendly and Easy to Navigate
The importance of a good Graphical User Interface design can be the difference between product acceptance and rejection. If the end users feel it is not easy to understand, difficult to navigate, then the application ends up becoming a failure. Marketyard’s simple yet well designed mobile app can be easily accessed & navigated by farmers. The benefits of the services offered through the app, has attracted more number of users to use the app. This mobile app is currently available in English and Marathi languages. The company is planning to launch it in few other languages as well.
We are striving to provide a bouquet of services, which aid in overcoming the challenges faced by the farmers, so as to provide a fair share of price without the involvement of middle men
The Journey Ahead
Expense management is one of the major functions that every business should consider maintaining regardless of the size of the business. This applies to the agriculture sector as well. Farmers need to record their cost of production and other expenses since the record keeping practices shape their decision making process indirectly. In order to help farmers make the best decisions to improve their produce, the Marketyard development team is in the process of developing the ‘Expense Manager’ feature and adding it to the platform. This feature will help farmers maintain detailed records of their inputs, yields, and sales details. Moreover, information can be recorded on a real-time basis, which saves time by reducing the manual work.
“The marketyard development team is in the process of developing the ‘expense manager’ feature that will help farmers maintain detailed records of their inputs, yields, and sales details”
Another important and useful technology that allows businesses to buy and sell goods online is E-Commerce platform. E-commerce platforms help businesses to cut costs and cycle time, raise efficiency and provide more information, choice and value to consumers. In the recent years, e-commerce has found its way to the agribusinesses in India. Realizing the importance of e-commerce in the agricultural sector, the company is planning to develop an all-in-one E-commerce solution that can be integrated with the Marketyard mobile application.
“Having a strong foothold in Maharashtra, we are currently catering to over 225000 users, and within few months, we expect to further penetrate into neighboring states - Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat. We are also set to cover pan India by early next year,” concludes Anil Laxman Lade.
