Nagabhushanam is a peasant from adilabad growing onions on his leased
2 acre land for which he bought the seeds at INR 400/kg expecting he
can sell the outcome for atleast INR 50/kg. 3 moths are over and the
price dropped to 25. This was the case still going on since he started
farming. How many times a small farmer can resort himself not to commit a
suicide? A so called wise suggestion an educated analyst can give is to
quit the farming. What can be the situation if all the farmers follow
those wise advises. Can I (you) get 3 delicious full meals a day with
with an extra privilege to complain on it.
Rajanna Reddy is another dryland farmer from Ananthapuram sowed Green
Chillies at the same time when a few hundreds of farmers opted the same
without knowing the actual demand. Right when their miserable day
arrived they had no other option than selling the entire yield to a mere
price of INR 10 a kg for which the cost of investment was INR 25/kg.
What can all those hundreds of vexed and doomed farmers do? Launch a
protest to force the Government to exempt their farm loans!
Paparayudu is a an old and experienced farmer from Eluru of West
Godavari who has been growing paddy since last 30 years and every time
he has to compromise in selling them at a 'no loss no gain' price for
his toiling efforts of 90 days under the hide & seek game of
seasonal rainfall. And the most difficult thing for him to digest is
that the other vegetables and groceries are coming at a price as dear as
gold or silver. Can somebody think of guiding him to choose other
profitable crop for his demographic and soil quality conditions?
All the answers to these questions can only be answered by an Oracle
only. Well, I am not talking here about the multi-national giant company
Oracle, but a so called fortune teller. When the most intelligent
Indian can forecast an equity price to profit a billionaire, can
estimate a countries GDP growth and even the number of MP seats a
particular party can win using statistics or other advanced science,
should we really need an Oracle?
Can we address these poor farmers troubles as intelligently as a
Facebook /Google developer can find an optimal buying choices for an on
line customer to advertise on websites.
The fact is that we are indebted to them at least thrice a day for
our food and parties involving pizzas and KFC chickens whenever we want.
We are now living in a world where a meteorologist can effectively
predict whether it will rain in this week or not for at least next
month. Similarly, I ask the most advanced and intellectual community of
India, Can we predict what the price of onions after 3 months for
Nagabhushanam? or Can we suggest a better crop for Paparayudu to see
him smiling for he got some profit through farming in his lifetime. Can
we inform Rajanna Reddy that Green chillies have already been sowed by
100 more farmers than yesterday so that he can wait for some more days
or chose another demanding seed?
Agri-Informatics is the lifesaving ‘Oracle’, I am going to propose.
It can predict a particular crops price and demand from place to place
and time to time (in space-time). It should be sensitive to all the key
factors like,
- Season-wise demand of an agri-product.
- Acres of land under agriculture for a particular seed with their recorded age of growth.
- The expected rainfall data from meteorology department.
- International and national bans and lifts on exports and imports of specific goods
- Related to a crop.
- News on Minimum support price levied.
- New food subsidy schemes. Subsidized costs of seeds and fertilizers.
- Changes in Electricity tariffs for their effect on bore-well dependent irrigation for
- Agriculture.
- Variation in prices of alternate substitutes for an agri-product.
- Existing stockpile in FCI and private go-downs.
- Fuel costs on transportation.
- The buying power of prospective consumers for some specific agri-goods.
- Rise and falls in demand from food processing agencies and junk food sellers.
- Natural disasters like floods, El Nino and droughts.
Mathematically one can establish relations between change in price and demand with respect to time and place, as well.
Denote P(t,x) and D(t,x) are the price and demand respectively for an
agri-product 'A ' at time t and place x. Then in terms of partial
derivatives of P and D a coupled simultaneous system of Partial
Differential Equations (PDE) can be imagined as follows.
Suppose, if today, (i.e. at t=0 day), the price P(0, Nellore) and
demand D(0, Nellore) are known for a place x=Nellore then the above
stated PDE can calculate P(t, Nellore) and D(t, Nellore) for t=1 day
(i.e. tomorrows price ). Once the price at t=1 is known the same above
equation is iterated to find the price on t=2 day as well but with
slight possibility of small errors. For solving these PDE it involves a
lot of mathematical effort and super computational power on large grids
such at the scale of a country and for a sequence of future 30 days.
Some serious efforts have already been made in this regard by Tamilnadu
Agricultural University.
For more information see-
http://www.tnagmark.tn.nic.in/price_forecast.htm
Let us all wish our farmers a happy smile in future for their handsome profits being the reason.
