AMCS- A Step Towards Development And Prosperity Of Farmers

1. AMCS- A Step Towards Development And Prosperity Of Farmers Farmers are the rulers of India, in the sense that they are the ones who occupy a major portion of the national populace.Farming has been the central and traditional occupation of the people here dating back to the era of Indus Valley Civilization and even before in some parts of India. Most of the population of this country works in the agriculture and dairy sectors which entirely rule farming business. There are above 150 million farmers across India which is a big number. Over half of them contribute in the dairy industry which makes India the largest producer of milk worldwide, accounting for 18.5 percent of world production. The country achieved an annual output of 155.5 million tons of milk in 2015-16 as compared to 146.3 million tons in 2014-15, witnessing a growth of nearly 6.3 percent. Though the contribution is commendable, the farmers involved in dairy business have to deal with a whole heap of challenges. Primarily, they find a dearth of resources that could be invested in developing a proper infrastructure for cattle, to enhance milk production. Secondly, the milk societies that collect milk from these farmers often play foul in making the right and desirable payment resulting into disappointment and loss of faith on milk societies. Moreover, there is no efficient system to keep their milk data intact and accurate which could help them track their business smoothly. In addition to this, the biggest challenge that the farmers face today is disrupted connectivity. There is no direct link that connects them to the dairy industry where their milk reaches ultimately. They are not informed of ongoing rates of milk and neither aware of any policies issued by the government for their welfare. Eventually, the farmers have to bear the brunt owing to the scarcity of appropriate knowledge, resources, and connectivity. So considering all these aspects, there is an immediate requirement of a solution that can eradicate these challenges or more, and contribute towards the development of farmers providing a sustainable livelihood. Automatic Milk Collection System (AMCS) is one such solution developed by an organization named Prompt Group based in Gujarat. “The first step for us was to meet the farmers and discuss the problems they face every day while being in the dairy business. To begin with, we visited different rural areas spread across Gujarat as these are the prominent locations where most of the milk is collected; about 80 percent of total production. Once we gathered their requirements, we analyzed deeply on the root causes of these deficits. We then derived a conclusion that most of their complaints were regarding the milk collection process. This process, being an integral segment of Cow To Consumer process (CtoC) needed to be attended for the smooth functioning of the dairy industry. We worked on the faults and considered various possible solutions. After extensive R&D, we could finally devise a software system to automate the milk collection process, thereby introducing accuracy and transparency. And that system is named AMCS.” quoted Ritesh Sutaria, CTO, Prompt Group. AMCS is a software application specifically built for easy functioning of milk collection process

2. carried out at Village Dairy Cooperative Society (VDCS). A committee of local villagers and farmers is set up who manage all the activities at VDCS. The milk brought by farmers is tested by taking a sample of each. The tests comprise of weighing milk, and analyzing its quality by measuring the amount of fat and Solid Non-Fat (SNF) content, density, and water content present in the milk; all through with the help of AMCS software application. The system keeps a log of the data obtained for each farmer and calculates the price of milk to be given away as payment. The peculiarity of this software is that it is entirely connected to the cloud, in the sense that, the system provides a facility for maintaining a centralized database over internet leading to consistent and accurate records. This makes it possible for both farmers and members of the dairy industry to connect and communicate over the same platform, which was a limitation earlier. Apart from AMCS software system, Prompt has developed an Android application named Farmers App specifically for farmers. “When we met the farmers, we learned that a major difficulty they had been experiencing was a lack of transparency. They could hardly access their data as it remained in control of VDCS. They found that their data was being manipulated in some or the other manner, which resulted in their payments being slashed down by a considerable difference. We realized that they needed something that could help them gain access to their data easily. Hence, we developed an Android application called Farmers App.” said Sutaria.

3. Farmers App enables a farmer to keep track of his entire business. It shows the quantity of milk he supplies to VDCS during both the shifts, that is, morning and evening, milk data, amount of payment credited to his bank account, complete passbook of his account, compare current milk data with previous month/year data, and cattle feed bought over a period of time. The app provides a full summary of transactions made with milk societies imparting easy business management. This enables a farmer to conveniently access his data, actively participate and contribute to the progress of dairy industry, and eventually improve the economic growth of the nation. The Farmers App is extremely beneficial to the farmers and proves to be a boon for them. There are about 18500 active milk societies throughout Gujarat and over 1000 villages have already been digitalized. Farmers, milk societies, milk unions, and dairy industry have actively been participating in this movement of digitalization and are pleased with the automation of entire system. By introducing AMCS and Farmers App, they have been able to eliminate the majority of concerns they were tackling earlier. PromptGroup has achieved this milestone through endless efforts to bring up this project and make it reach to people. They are looking forward to connecting all the farmers to Dairy Industry, together on a single centralized platform through AMCS. This system has already brought massive effect specifically on farmers’ lives and has subsequently changed their outlook towards their occupation and the dairy sector. Their response is overwhelming.