In that study we want to show how Information and Communication Technologies could help to reduce the information asymmetry in the agricultural sector and naturally improve farmer's profitability and productivity. India has a pressing need to raise food production and agricultural productivity to satisfy his population growh of which around one-fifth is malnourished. Thanks the develop of project like this and improving some fundamental information and payment services and get a better efficinecy in the supply chian other than other services, we expected to growth the indian agricultural production and meet the population's nutritional need.

1. MASTER IN
ECONOMIA DELLO SVILUPPO E
COOPERAZIONE INTERNAZIONALE
ANNO ACCADEMICO 2014 -2015
ICT (Information and Communication
Technology) for a better and connected
agriculture: Case Study: India.
A cura di Christian Battistoni
Con il patrocinio del
In collaborazione con
I Partner del Master:
Con la partecipazione di:

2. MAIN SOURCES
• Vodafone: About Vodafone Vodafone is one of the world’s largest
telecommunications companies and provides a range of services including voice,
messaging, data and fixed communications. Vodafone has mobile operations in 26
countries, partners with mobile networks in 55 more, and has fixed broadband
operations in 17 markets. At the end of March 2015, Vodafone had approximately
445 million mobile customers and 12 million fixed broadband customers. Vodafone
plays an active role in seeking to address the challenges faced by today’s emerging
economies through the use of technology. This includes working with enterprise
customers, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and government agencies to
develop mobile services that increase agricultural productivity and efficiency and
improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers.
• Accenture: Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and
outsourcing company. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive
capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on
the world’s most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help
them become high-performance businesses and governments. With approximately
215,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries, the company
generated net revenues of US$21.5 billion for the fiscal year 2010.

3. INCEPTION
" This study makes the case for actions that save lives, create
jobs, grow economies and, at the same time, slow the rate of
climate change. We place ourselves and our children at peril if
we ignore these opportunities. "
Rachel Kyte (World Bank Group Vice President & Special Envoy
for Climate Change)

4. 4
WORLD CONTEXT
• The world’s climate is changing fast, and will
continue to do so for the foreseeable future,
especially in agriculture, this posing many risk for
food and farming;
• However, the new farming systems can be
adapted to cope with the changes. In this way,
agriculture could contribute to mitigate our
climate impact.
We’re talking about the concept of ‘climate-smart
agriculture’.

5. 5
SMART – AGRICULTURE
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations (FAO) defines climate-smart
agriculture as consisting of three main pillars:
• sustainably increasing agricultural productivity
and incomes (food security);
• adapting and building resilience to climate
change (adaptation);
• reducing and/or removing greenhouse gas
emissions (mitigation), when and where possible

6. 6
BENEFITS
• In this view, mobile communications and in general M2M solutions,
could surely help to meet the challenge of reduce an estimated 9.2
billion of people who demand for food by 2050. They can also cut
carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 5 mega tonnes (Mt) in
the developing countries, as India, and reduce freshwater
withdrawals for agricultural irrigation by 6%, with enormous savings
in water-stressed regions. These benefits assume there will be
around 549 million mobile connections to relevant services in 2020.
• This project aims to stimulate the necessary “alliance” between
mobile operators, governments, NGOs and businesses to realize
these opportunities and explore others, with reference to the
Indian context, with the specific objective to improve efficiency in
agriculture and increase income for farmers in this country.

7. 7
INDIAN CONTEXT
• In India live about 1.24 billion people – one-sixth of the world’s population on just 2% of the total
land and its population is anticipated to reach 1.67 billion by 2020. Surely, India is one of the
world’s bigger food producing countries, in view of that about 68% of its large population living in
rural areas. Indeed, 200 million people will be working in agriculture in India in 2020. Therefore,
Agricultural sector will remain a significant contributor at around 10% of GDP by 2020 Indian
economy and, in particular, the agricultural sector face a great transiction creating enromous
opportunities for innovation and growth. Certainly, problems such as historical underinvestment in
agriculture, rural poverty and fragmented properties of land are true obstacles to achieving this
result.
GENDER IN AGRICULTURE
• Within India, the gender gap in income between female and male varied widely across regions in a
range from 90% in Gujarat to 54% in Tamil Nadu in 2004/05.
• more than 60% of all employed women work in the sector and in rural areas and the percentage
of women who depend on agriculture for their livelihood is as high as 84 %.
• Moreover , about 75% of women engaged in agriculture are illiterate yet, this pose other barriers
in improved of their status.
In consideration of that, a fight against the women situation in agriculture, thanks the use of ICT and
M2M Solution in particular, could help to defeat hunger and malnourishment.

8. 8
STAKEHOLDERS
PARTNERS
The government of India would develop projects in mobile across the country. Given the difficult in tthe
conduct yield verification exercises (CCEs) over millions of very small land holdings across the country,
the use of remote sensing technology would serve to concentrate the exercise in areas where we can
find higher incidence of crop failure. Also the role of domestic and foregin financial institutions,
international organizations, ONG donors in general, can help to finanancing this projects.
M2M PLAYERS
There are several stakeholders to take into consideration for the developement of the M2M System.
These are: module vendors, connectivity providers, M2M platform and application providers, device
platform providers, mobile operators, aggregators and mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs).
PARTNERSHIPS
the importance of public-private partnerships is clear. Partnership is central for the strategy to get scale
and continue to grow. Partnering with both government and NGOs allows us to establish an extension
systems other than, naturally, community networks, domain expertise, and to scale operations.
INTERMEDIARIES
The role of intermediaries in a model of ICT-based advisory services continues to be controversial.
While intermediaries, from radio announcers to private sector extension agents, are playing a role in
extending reach and addressing human capacity issues, there is disagreement about what role they play
in a sustainable business model. Therefore, will be difficult to describe which could be the future role(s)
of intermediaries in transmitting information within the innovation system.

9. 9
PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS
1. Information Services
Problem: Lack of information is the greater barrier to improve yields and consequently incomes for India’s smallholders
farmers
Solution: Thanks the use of this information service Farmers increased their income by an average 5-15%.
2. Receipt Services
Problem: Fraud and losses are one of the major concern on income and efficiency for small farmers due to the lose of
productivity.
Solution: Receipt services can eliminate fraud previously causing loss of 20% of daily supply.
3. Payment Services
Problem: Many suppliers of service some services and others haven’t a bank accounts but often need a loan and
problem for payment.
Solution: For example, In Tanzania thanks mobile payments, Farmer made about 74000$ in mobile payments and
loans during the pilot project.
4. Field Audit
Problem: In the past the main problems in this case were the impact on enviroment other then the efficiency in the
supply chain
Solution: Thanks our system, auditors can save one day for week by eliminating paper records.
5. Enabling access to local markets
Problem: In many big countries ther are several problem in regard to travel costs and time for payments, in particular
for women.
Solution: Thanks to mobile systems, about 15000 farmers supplying stand to benefit from mobile payment and
ordering.
6. Smartphone enabled –services
Thanks the use of these devices we can obtain a great growth in production and in annual efficiency saving for farmers.

10. 10
Barriers to scale M2M Applications in agriculture
COSTS
Problem: Cost is the most important barrier for the adoption of Agri M2M applications, particularly in emerging markets.
Solutions: Exist, however, an opportunity to create innovative business models to help overcome this barrier. Moreover, the Agri M2M
solutions could be developed by cooperatives or agri businesses, who can finance the solution out to the individual farmers.
LOW WAGES IN EMERGING MARKETS:
Problem: Low wages for agricultural workers in emerging world are one of the most important challenge.
Solutions: Until low-income countries can improve their incomes to levels at which they obtain sufficient savings to meet their investment
needs, they will rely on external investments and resources for the sector development.
LIMITED KNOWLEDGE
Problem: Small or not understanding of the benefits of Agri M2M solutions is naturally a barrier. Lack of technical knowledge could also
create a problem for the rollout of services, as the end users would need to know how to set-up, maintain, and use the applications.
Solution: However, knowledge could be improved due to initiatives in educating the end user and other players in the applications and
benefits of Agri M2M.
NETWORK COVERAGE
Problem: 85% of the world’s population is covered by a mobile network. However, coverage is heavily focused on densely populated urban
areas, leaving the rural locations, which are of course primarily where agriculture is based, underserved.
Solution: One way to address this problem is with the use of low frequency spectrum. Moreover, Exist possibilites to use low cost low power
solutions in Agri M2M thanks the use of low power.
RELIABILITY OF EQUIPMENT
Problem: M2M system in the agricultural sector impose new needs on available technology.
Solution:This surely provide an opportunity for mobile operators.
MARKET FRAGMENTATION
To develop M2M solutions is most important not have a fragmentated market. Therefore partership and strategic solution beteen farmers or
cooperative are the better solution.

11. 11
GOVERNANCE AND STRATEGY
The Indian governament issued several policies to increase agricultural production and infrastructure using various ICT projects.
For instance, the Indian Universal Service comprehend a Universal Service Fund that bring to completion the four points below:
1. Arrange for non-discriminatory and widespread access to quality ICT services at reasonably prices to all people in rural and
distant areas.
2. Furnish a powerful and valid connecting to the hinterland to link the populations of rural and remote areas with urban centers.
3. Assure that Universal Services are supplied in an economically efficient way
4. Guarantee that the benefits of inclusive growth lead rapid socio-economic development and an improved standard of living to
unconnected areas
M2M Development
Therefore, The Indian agricultural sector costitutes a fundamental opportunity for operators to develop and deploy M2M
solutions and products.
there would be scenarios that can help mobile operators to get a bigger share of the Agri M2M pie, and create a growth of the
Agri M2M ecosystem:
• Connectivity only: sure the more expanded sector with a big limit for their revenue potential as well as the growth of the
Agri M2M industry
• Partnerships: creation of active partenrship and collaboration with other players across the ecosystem, such as also system
integrators, solution providers, service providers and application developers as well as naturally start-ups and
entrepreneurs, to implement E2E Agri M2M solutions and with a great help for innovation
• Marketing and Partnerships: marketing support, enter partnerships, leveraging brand and other strategies to train the end
users on the use and benefits of Agri M2M
• Vertical integration: develop and deploy end-to-end Agri M2M services

12. COSTRAINTS
12
Infrastructure costraints: In india this problems exist above all in some zones,
where small farmers highlighted infrastructure gaps that affected their ability
to realise productivity gains through improved yields and higher prices.
Thanks ITC’s internet service is possible to overcome some of the challenges
presented by inadequate infrastructure.
Other costraints: other issues were also raised over the course of our
investigation.
a) Access to credit
Non-availability of credit at reasonable rates is a persistent problem for small
farmers. It’s possibile to overcome this problem thank the help of several
domestic and International financial institution, International Organizations
and Donors.
b) Capacity for risk-taking
Farmers, in general, are naturally conservative. However, in order for
information to drive agricultural productivity, farmers must be willing to try
new strategies, which may include new farming techniques.

13. SUSTAINABILITY
13
Even where adequate infrastructure exists, collecting data and creating content requires a huge
investment in human resources and in establishing suitable systems. Yet, both public and
private funding is often limited and, in the case of most development projects, short-lived.
Large donors can play a key role in promoting data sharing, for instance by making it a
requirement. Indeed, in many projects, At the pilot stage of providing these services, the cost
of delivering information to farmers was borne by Intenational Organizations and NGO.
Overall, in this project we have learnt the following from these case study and further:
• 1. The information service model should be able to meet the varied and increasing demands
of farmers;
• 2. accuracy and timeliness of service is an important factor;
• 3. an assessment of the farmer’s need for information should be done at the village level,
and continuous evaluation of needs should be an inbuilt part of the system;
• 4. modern service providers should not compete with other service providers but should
build synergies with existing extension services and fill existing information gaps;
• 5. the service providers should utilize the potential of a two-way communication facility on
mobile phones, and help lines should be created to provide customized solutions and to
enable feedback from farmers; and
• 6. finally the service providers should have an idea of the existing socio-economic situation of
farmers and the prevailing market and infrastructure constraints.

14. MONITOR AND EVALUATION
14
Waverman suggests that a valid way of measuring the economic value of mobile telephony is by
examining the willingness of the poor to pay for mobile phones. Indicators could also focus on specific
commodities and parts of the value chain . Other suggestions for what to measure include:
• new investments that ICTs have attracted to the community;
• tasks that have become more cost- or time-effective;
• new businesses which were created;
• ICT related policy shifts;
• increased participation by women, youth and marginalized members of the community.
Other Examples of cost-effective ways to measure impact include the Progress out of Poverty Index®
(PPI®) and the Base of Pyramid (BoP) Impact Assessment Framework.
THE IMPACT IN INDIA
The services for agriculture showed in this project, could create compelling benefits for farmers and
society in India. Indeed, they could positively impact the lives of nearly 70 million farmers in India in
2020 through a range of information and functional services. This is equivalent to 60% of Indian farmers
in 2020. The benefits from these services include:
• Better access to information on, for example, agricultural best practices and weather forecasts
• Better access to information on market prices and the ability to connect more directly with buyers
• Improved communication and efficiency in agricultural supply chains Reductions in fraud and losses
• Easier access to financial services and credit for farmers Reduced travel time and costs
Together these benefits can support increased yields, improved crop quality and access to higher
market prices, as well as reducing losses and inefficiencies for farmers, by generating $9 billion in
additional income for farmers annually in 2020.