Vijay Pratap Singh Aditya, CEO ekgaon
Vijay Pratap Singh Aditya presented its social enterprise ekgaon. The enterprise offers small farmers in the Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh region of India an IT platform that provides them with services throughout the agricultural production chain.
An IT solution for farmers who:
- Live in geographically very remote areas
- Rely on mono crop agriculture
- Live of very low incomes
- Abandon their agricultural activity for the search of better paid jobs
- Are illiterate (literacy level at 20%)
-
But to a large extent own mobile phones!
- Own the land they work on
The solution ekgaon proposes is as follows:
Farmers subscribe to the ekgaon IT platform through their mobile phones. And all communication is done through the mobile phone. Ekgaon provides a multitude of services:
To ensure this service ekgaon works with all the actors within the value chain. “We consider the middle men as good people!” declares Vijay emphasizing that each actor plays an vital role to grow, process and sell the farmers’ produce.
Because of this new service, it is now possible for retailers to collect produces from these small farmers by sending one track on one occasion instead making multiple trips: Farmers send SMS to indicate that they harvest is ready to be collected. As soon as the platform has registered 400 grain bags to be picked up, it contacts interested buyers and indicates the optimal truck route for the harvest to be picked up!
In this video, Vijay describes his idea further:
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