| |AUGUST 20218FARMERS OF THE FUTURE - WHAT CHANGE DOES THE DIGITAL MANDI SHIFT PROMISE?By Sanjay Borkar, Co-Founder & CEO, FarmERPAn entrepreneur for the past 24 years, Sanjay has been digitizing Agriculture since 2001, pursuing his passion for transforming Agriculture, Biotechnology and Food industry through innovative and smart ICT platformExpert Opiniongriculture forms the backbone of any society ­ it is upon the benefits we reap from its harvests, that we can move toward secondary pursuits. Often devoid of appreciation, acknowledgement, and real monetary benefits, our farmers toil over the land in much the same way they did years ago for lack of better options. The current Indian infrastructure revolves around producers travelling to their nearest pulse point, i.e., their local mandis which fall under the governance of the APMC. To the detriment of farmers, their journey begins with a long commute lugging along perishable items, resulting in certain wastage of the crop. Upon their arrival at the local marketplace, farmers must initiate their primary sale, offering their produce for sorting, grading, and packaging; armed only with reluctant good faith in the agents upon whom they depend so heavily on. The SystemThe most inefficient system consists of an overly complicated network of local agents, retailers and wholesalers who take part in the process of settling upon prices and making offers. The farmer, having been left out of the opaque mechanisms of the secondary sale, and forced to trust the words of the middleman, is pressured into selling his produce at a lower price. The larger injustice, however, is that he sees barely any of the payment after the agent has carved off a fat commission, and equally due to unreliable and delayed cash payments.Mandis in this manner, create little monopolies with agents stockpiling inventory to hold control over prices, aware that primary producers have nowhere else to turn, nor any point of reference for a fair price. These markets function in quite an autonomous way, devoid of links to others across the country, which not only allows carte blanche for fluctuating prices but also staggers the movement of goods.With its fallacies having been unveiled in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, there is an increased clamour ASanjay Borkar, Co-Founder & CEO
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