Abstract: In India, majority of the population resides in rural communities. The development of all aspects within rural communities is vital for the effective development of the country. These include, education, employment opportunities, infrastructure, housing, civic amenities and the environmental conditions. Furthermore, rural individuals need to be aware of all modern and innovative methods and techniques that are vital to augment productivity. Within the country, the rural communities are still in an underdeveloped state. The individuals are residing in the conditions of poverty, they are illiterate and unemployed. Due to these factors, they are unable to sustain their living conditions in an appropriate manner. It is essential to formulate programs, schemes and measures that have the main objective of bringing about improvements in rural communities. The main areas that have been taken into account in this research paper include, concept of rural development, approaches to rural development, problems experienced by rural individuals, programs initiated by the Government for rural development. Agriculture marketing system has undergone several changes over the last 60 years owing to the increased marketed surplus, increase in urbanization and income levels and consequent changes in the pattern of demand for marketing services; increase in linkages with distant and overseas markets. The main objective of agriculture marketing is to reduce the cost of marketing. Use of information and communication technology (ICT) in agricultural sector can be called as e-Agriculture or e-Agribusiness. Digitalization will change every part of agri food chain but require major transformations in farming, rural economics, and marketing of produce. The application of ICT in agriculture has positive effects for farmers in terms of accessing market information and promoting agricultural products. In digital world, we can revolutionize agriculture market end to end digitally. CT helps small farm holders to find multiple buyers for producer who are willing to pay high price. Small holders deal with only handful buyers who either pickup directly from them. Use of mobile application providing price information to farmers can reduce market distortions. In the Global scenario in Kenya m-Farm mobile applications are enabling collective sales where users can find location of farmers, input dealers, buyers, warehouse for storage, credit etc and it reported that farmers are receiving higher prices in market. In China’s agricultural industry, traditionally farmers plan their crop based on sales of previous season. With Alibaba’s flash sale and marketing platform ‘Juhuasuan’ it’s virtual farming feature “Jutudi” allowing farmers access to consumer sales data so that they can more accurately plan crops based on current consumer trends. It lets consumer’s pre order agriculture products before harvest. It directly works with cooperatives and farmers to bypass middlemen. Uzhavan app by government of Tamilnadu for marketing of produce as one of service offered and many other digital apps by other state government for letting the farmers get to know about the timely and proper information for the crop production and the market details. This article gives idea about current digital services in marketing of agriculture produce.
Keywords: Agriculture, Produce, Marketing, Digital Marketing, Information communication technology.
Title: AN OVERVIEW OF SIGNIFICANCE OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVES AND IMPORTANCE OF DIGITAL AGRICULTURAL MARKETING SERVICES IN INDIAN CONTEXT
Author: Shrikanth Ganapati Naik, Jayadatta S, Shruti Modak S
International Journal of Management and Commerce Innovations
ISSN 2348-7585 (Online)
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