Building climate resilience is also a focus for ITC in its engagement with farmers. Picture shows a farm in Madhya Pradesh.
| Photo Credit: N. Ravi Kumar
The $8 billion in revenue, diversified ITC Ltd. is keen on 10 million farmers across 4,000 farmer producer organisations (FPOs) in the country accessing its Meta Market for Advanced Agriculture and Rural Services (MAARS) by 2030.
About 1.7 million farmers with about 1,700 FPOs now access ITCMAARS, the phygital ecosystem with a super app at its centre offering a bouquet of services from customised advisory on crops and weather, access to seeds and fertilizers, information on prices in the mandis to linkages with banks. The super app includes Krishi Mitra, a Gen-AI powered voice assistant for farmers.
For the company, ITCMAARS is the next level of its popular e-choupal initiative and a step further to strengthen bonds with farmers who are the backbone of its agri business besides staying relevant through handholding measures and having in place a robust tech-driven system to ensure access to crop, traceability and quality.
Forging partnerships
The evolving ITCMAARS ecosystem has also meant ITC connecting with scores of start-ups, research institutions and other partners providing associated services such as soil testing, local weather information and drones. The firm expects the partnership to strengthen as it looks to to onboard more farmers.
“We would like every farmer to have ITCMAARS… [it] has such good quality information,” ITC’s Agri Business Division chief executive officer S. Ganesh Kumar said during a media interaction at Bhopal recently.
Scaling up and being precise about the information at every geography is now easier with the app, which now is available in seven languages.
“Our ambition is to take it to 4,000 FPOs from [the existing] about 1,700 FPOs… [also] we want to take this across to more value chain whether fruits, vegetables and spices,” the CEO added.
Crop insurance
In terms of new services, crop insurance is likely to be added. The States where ITC wants to either roll out or expand ITCMAARS include Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar besides parts of east MP. At present, the company procures three million tonne of agricultural commodities from FPOs in 22 States. The focus is on traditional crops such as wheat, paddy and maize. In Madhya Pradesh, ITC works with 550 FPOs and procures 2.5 lakh tonne of wheat through them.
A farmer in Sehore district of Madhya Pradesh displaying the ITCMAARS app on his mobile phone.
| Photo Credit:
N.Ravi Kumar
Farmers in villages of Sehore district, who interacted with the journalists, said ITC procured produce from the farm gate and at a price higher than what they would get in the mandis. At some places, ITC, as part of climate smart agri initiatives, has introduced farmers to smart practices such as use of broad bed furrow, drones and water stewardship.
(The correspondent was in Bhopal at the invitation of the company)
Published – December 07, 2024 07:57 pm IST
