We are the first highly personalized professional information service for farmers. RML has over 170,000 subscribers across 12,000 villages. By one estimate RML might have reached up to a million farmers. This is because farmers don’t consumer the information by themselves but share it with 8-12 other farmers. They say that it’s information, and it gives me a different status in the village (to share). It creates social bearing for the individual farmer as well.
When we did a small innovation program at Reuters one of the ideas that came was reducing information asymmetries. We found there was poor discovery in the value chain, there was a lack of accurate and timely weather information, a lack of reliable and timely information that affects prices, and a lack of timely information that affects productivity.
Farmers get as little as 24% value of the final price of their raw produces vs. 40-50% in the US/UK. Buyers pay a premium of up to 20% due to lack of information.
Even today when we speak to customers, the constant demand is can you tell me how much produce can I get out of an acre of soybean. This information does not seem to be available. One quote: “If I had known timely and accurate information about the price of mustard in Latur market, I would have made 40% more money”
What RML provides SMS alerts a few times a day. The farmer buys a voucher, available from local shops, banks etc. He calls a toll free number to activate service (in his language). We give him information from within 50km, about the crops he’s interested in, in his local language. Once customized, he starts receiving the daily updates on his mobile phone.
When we began we tested with an application, but farmers seemed to prefer a push/SMS service. Then 85% of farmers said they saw value and that they didn’t mind paying for this service.
Some of the studies we’ve seen is that farmers are getting income advancement of over 5-10%.
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