mKRISHI features in CSR360 GPN Magazine (Jun 2010)

mKRISHI- A Mobile Agro Advisory System, an offering from TCS Innovation Labs- Mumbai has been featured in the recently launched issue of CSR360 GPN Magazine. Dr. Arun Pande, Head- TCS Innovation Labs- Mumbai stated that mKRISHI was developed as an innovative platform to offer personalized and integrated services to farmers. mKRISHI platform combines multiple technologies to bring vital information regarding local weather, fertilizer requirements based on soil conditions, pest control, and current food grain prices in local markets in a rich content format to the farmer's low-end mobile handsets.

It also allows farmers to send queries in their local languages, as well as images and voice activated SMS through a mobile phone and provides personal responses with advice or relevant information in these languages.

While talking about the motivation behind the mkrishi project, Dr. Pande said “Agriculture is a key contributor to the Indian economy and presents several business opportunities for ICT companies to deliver various services to farmers. TCS undertook to research problems faced by the agricultural community by travelling to rural communities to talk face to face with diverse stakeholders to understand the issues relating to Indian farmers, their low productivity and efficiency issues. It was evident that farmers did not have an easy way to get their personalized queries answered and continue to use traditional, inefficient farming techniques.

It was during this study that we realized that the farmers required several services besides agro advisory, such as poultry, cattle, micro credit, crop insurance, government policies, storage and selling of crops. mkrishi system was conceived to address all these challenges. To the best of our knowledge this is the first serious attempt to solve age old problems faced by farmers using the latest technology.