mKrishi

mKRISHI is developed by Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS) as an innovative platform to offer personalized and integrated services to farmers. TCS 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 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.

mKRISHI® serves to achieve the following:

• Reach farmers individually to understand their needs
• Enable farmers to receive important information about pesticides, fertilizers and soil and water conservation
• Provide critical micro-climate, weather information in order to plan farming operations
• Facilitate better production and cultivation practices 
• Improve access to markets, refining the associated economy

How mKrishi works
mKrishi is an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) – based system. The farmers dial a published number (called the IVR Service number) to avail this service. They listen to it and select the appropriate audio prompts (in the local language of the region). They record their questions and get a question id for each question.

Experts analyze the queries and provide the appropriate audio advice. An SMS is sent to the each farmer indicating that his/her question has been replied to. When the advice is available, the farmers enter the query id on the phone to listen to the expert’s advice. Experts can also send out various alerts like the weather forecast, market prices etc. in either English or the local languages to the farmers.

Website: http://www.tcs.com/offerings/technology-products/mKRISHI/Pages/default.aspx

Countries: India