Vodafone mobile services to push smart farming

Vodafone Group is hoping its mobile technology will improve agriculture productivity, by delivering real time information directly to farmers.

The company identified various agriculture related mobile services for information and payments, smart phone enabled services for local market access, field audits, etc, to benefit 70 million farmers in the country by 2020.

This was published in the company’s “Connected Farming in India” report which concludes that the introduction of simple mobile services, designed to help small scale farmers in emerging markets, could boost the farm gate income in the next five years.

The report, based on research commissioned from Accenture Strategy with support from Vodafone Foundation, said that the future of agriculture lies in bringing digital services to the farm as agriculture is increasingly becoming more and more knowledge-intensive.

As the average farming household lives on less than ₹250 per day, simple mobile services could enhance earnings of almost two-thirds of such farmers.

It has been pointed out that increased investments in agriculture by the government and private sector have helped to stimulate productivity.

It is being estimated that 200 million people will be working in agriculture by 2020, and the focus will be mainly on cash crops like fruits and vegetables with an eye on export opportunities.

Given the situation, the report said that mobile technologies have the potential to improve agricultural productivity in emerging economies, thanks to the rapid spread of mobile phones in rural areas.

Vodafone has also announced the expansion of its Farmers Club initiatives in the emerging markets of Ghana, Kenya, New Zealand, Tanzania, and Turkey, including the Kisaan Mitr in India for helping farmers to enhance crop yields and increase farm gate income.

Farmers club is a social business model which offers a range of mobile services to help boost productivity.

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