A look back: A rich harvest

New Delhi: Ranjan Sharma is changing the way lakhs of farmers get credible information. In the process, his partners IFFCO and Airtel are increasing their reach in rural markets

Why we did the story: Entrepreneurship and technology have often come together to give us exciting products, like Steve Jobs and the iPad or the Google founders' search engine. But there is a higher qualitative effect when entrepreneurs use technology to rectify a mass problem. Sure, Ranjan Sharma's clients - farmers - may not match the number of Google users; but for a nation where food security is a constant concern, his product is sure having a massive trickle down effect.

A fertiliser industry veteran, Sharma realised that Indian farmers were not getting credible information on weather, soil, crop prices and nutrients. This meant productivity could go down by as much as 50 per cent. But the problem could be rectified if the information could be sent to farmers through cellphones. And thanks to growing access and affordability of mobile networks and handsets in rural India, Sharma's idea hit off instantly. IKSL was thus born.

Another aspect that interested us was the two partners Sharma roped in - Airtel, India's largest mobile service provider, and IFFCO, the largest fertiliser seller and well known among farmers. In fact, due to IKSL, Airtel's subscriber base continues to outpace that of others.

(You can read the original story here)

Where the story stands: From a little more than 8 million subscribers in January 2011, IKSL's customer-base has continued to grow at a fast clip and as of April 2011 has crossed the 10 million mark. The focus though is not to increase numbers, but to generate better quality content to make it more useful for farmers. IKSL now divides a market, for example a state, into agro-climatic zones. So the messages that it sends to its subscribers are specific to each zone and its crops. IKSL has about 60 climatic zones. It plans to expand this to 200.

IKSL has tied up with NGOs and government departments to form user communities, like goat rearers in Tamil Nadu and rice growers in Haryana. Messages to these groups will be specific to their needs. The government of Bihar has made it compulsory for agriculture officers to subscribe to IKSL's services. Similar steps are expected in northern states, like Uttar Pradesh.