TY - JOUR
T1 - Sharing app for farm mechanization
T2 - Gold Farm's digitized access based solution for financially constrained farmers
AU - Sengupta, Tuhin
AU - Narayanamurthy, Gopalakrishnan
AU - Moser, Roger
AU - Hota, Pradeep Kumar
PY - 2019/8/1
Y1 - 2019/8/1
N2 - India continues to experience strong challenges in the agriculture sector due to its increasing supply-demand gap, which is attributed to the increasing population, rapid urbanization, low productivity, absence of automation, weak infrastructure support, small and scattered land holdings, and migration of labour force to other sectors. Farm mechanization is one of the potential solutions to most of the above-listed challenges as it increases productivity as well as reduces the input resources. However, due to severe financial constraints experienced by the majority of Indian farmers, the adoption of farm mechanization has continued to remain beyond their reach. In this paper, we propose how digitized access based solution can help in overcoming the financial constraints experienced by the farmers in accessing expensive farm equipment. We validate our proposed solution by documenting the experience of the firm “Gold Farm”, which has developed and implemented a digitized sharing mobile app that can enable farmers to adopt farm mechanization. Gold Farm's sharing app offers access based solution for accessing farm equipment at affordable prices. Pay per usage, reduction in ownership risks, removal of upfront financial investment constraints, continuous monitoring and tracking of vehicles and increased utilization are the key advantages of digitized Gold Farm's sharing app. We discuss research, practice and social implications of implementing digitized access based solution for agriculture.
AB - India continues to experience strong challenges in the agriculture sector due to its increasing supply-demand gap, which is attributed to the increasing population, rapid urbanization, low productivity, absence of automation, weak infrastructure support, small and scattered land holdings, and migration of labour force to other sectors. Farm mechanization is one of the potential solutions to most of the above-listed challenges as it increases productivity as well as reduces the input resources. However, due to severe financial constraints experienced by the majority of Indian farmers, the adoption of farm mechanization has continued to remain beyond their reach. In this paper, we propose how digitized access based solution can help in overcoming the financial constraints experienced by the farmers in accessing expensive farm equipment. We validate our proposed solution by documenting the experience of the firm “Gold Farm”, which has developed and implemented a digitized sharing mobile app that can enable farmers to adopt farm mechanization. Gold Farm's sharing app offers access based solution for accessing farm equipment at affordable prices. Pay per usage, reduction in ownership risks, removal of upfront financial investment constraints, continuous monitoring and tracking of vehicles and increased utilization are the key advantages of digitized Gold Farm's sharing app. We discuss research, practice and social implications of implementing digitized access based solution for agriculture.
KW - Access based solution
KW - Agriculture
KW - Digitization
KW - India
KW - Sharing economy
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85065414791&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.compind.2019.04.017
DO - 10.1016/j.compind.2019.04.017
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85065414791
VL - 109
SP - 195
EP - 203
JO - Computers in Industry
JF - Computers in Industry
SN - 0166-3615
ER -