Student Power in Agriculture at Kalgudi

Every industry needs latest state-of-the-art inventions and fresh talent to be pumped in regularly. This will not only bring fresh ideas and innovations, but also creates a mutual knowledge and experience sharing between the veterans and new-comers. Agri-industry is the vital part of any economy, which needs participation and involvement of youth. With the advent of Internet and its penetration into the rural agricultural areas, students should take a step forward in bridging the gap between technology and agriculture. They need to act as a guiding hand to the older generations and the sects with lesser literacy rate. 

Agri-industry also provides umpteen opportunities for students who seek a productive long term career, as this is one such sector which is always in demand. There are many roles a student can aspire of  in this field; like progressive farmer, bio technologist, scientist, consultant, and many more. To be successful, it is most important to collaborate and understand the operations and technicalities in agriculture. This is how kalgudi can serve you as the perfect platform where you can build a network to gain and share knowledge:

• Connect with all stakeholders of the industry, from farmers to scientists.
• Post any query, individually or on behalf of your farming community, to the professors and scientists in the network.
• Get all kinds of local and international news updates like government policies, weather impacts on agriculture, universities and courses, and so on.
• Showcase your knowledge by Answering questions or sharing your ideologies to your connects and public.
• Search and be found by managers of top players and MNCs in agricultural industry
• Be a part of farmer cooperatives and other groups and help them by sharing your knowledge with them and providing solutions to them.
• You can have real time experiential learning to start-up as an agri-entrepreneur in the future, by connecting with businesses.
• Join www.kalgudi.com to increase your knowledge and be helpful to the society.

Kalgudi helps you save water in your farm!

Freshwater resources are depleting day by day. Increasing population is demanding more and more of this exhaustible resource. Water conservation is hence an issue of utmost concern. The sources of fresh water are limited to Rivers, Lakes, Wetlands and groundwater. For many decades, we have been consuming water from all these sources to grow our food. Nevertheless, there are many instances of huge loss in agriculture due to droughts, floods, and water scarcity in many forms.

Greatest boon to rescue agriculture from water scarcity is drip irrigation. The invention of drip irrigation in Israel has created a new revolution in agriculture, and increased the productivity dramatically. Now, with advance in Internet and communication, efficiency of field irrigation can further be improved.

How Kalgudi ensures effective irrigation?

• Weather report: Either in the form of heavy rainfall, or no rainfall at all, farmers face many troubles in irrigating their fields. Given the uncertainty in this regard, farmer is always helpless and forgoes his crop. Kalgudi provides weather reports in agricultural context and helps farmers take better decisions.
• Reservoir data: Kalgudi gives you the nearest reservoir data to understand the groundwater levels in your area. Farmer can calculate the amount of water required for the crop and also decide the Fertilizer/nutrient dosages depending on the water levels.

www.kalgudi.com also has a vast network of farm implements providers and Drip system installers. It can build a collaboration between Farmer groups, Irrigation companies and Agri consultants who can connect and discuss within the platform. They can thus formulate effective ways to provide irrigation to all locations in all conditions and effectively use the available water resources. On this World water day let us take a pledge and join kalgudi to save water for a better future!

Kalgudi – ICT for Agri-Extension

Agriculture is the backbone of many developing countries. Majority of the people in these areas depend on agriculture as their primary livelihood. They are the greatest contributors of the world as they produce the food consumed by people worldwide. This sector being of great importance, is functioning at very low efficiency. Illiteracy and lack of technological penetration are responsible for the low productivity in the core rural regions where agriculture is predominant. Agriculture extension plays its role here, to bridge the gap between technology and farmers.

An extension officer is the face of innovation and technology to the farmers in the rural regions. They take up the responsibility of carrying the latest technologies from scientists to farmers.

At present, there is a huge opportunity for extension officers to educate and disseminate knowledge to larger ranges of farmers, with increase in the rate of internet penetration. They require a perfectly suitable, wholesome platform like kalgudi, to communicate with the masses effectively, with greater impact through minimal resources.

Few features of Kalgudi for Agri-Extension

• Share an update: From latest technology, to seasonal crop related information, this feature allows a person to communicate his or her idea to all of the users in a single click.
• Groups: An extension officer can create a group of farmers and cooperatives. They can also include the pesticide/fertiliser dealers in their conversations, from the vast network of Agri-input dealers in Kalgudi.
• Share a price: Anybody can share the local market price of their commodity, to all their contacts and to the public. Similarly, get the price updates from various markets across the world.
• Q&A: Any question can be posted by anyone which will get answers and views of people worldwide. A farmer can post a question in his group, or to public, which will be answered by professionals from all over the world who are registered in Kalgudi.

Kalgudi has a presence in more than 50 countries. An association between the extension officers in these countries will create synergy to all the participants in the platform. Kalgudi will add to the benefits provided by extension education.   

Kalgudi for Efficient Banana Ripening Process

A fruit for all seasons and demographics, banana is always on top demand. Producers face many challenges in the process of making sure that their produce is having maximum reach, retaining its quality. Different types of bananas have different stages of harvesting depending upon the purpose and end use. Most of the times bananas are harvested at a premature stage. If the transportation lead time is longer, they are harvested earlier to ripen during the transit. Banana takes much longer time to ripen naturally, and moreover, the peel splits and fruit does not ripen uniformly, which degrades its quality.

Factors affecting the ripening process

• Fruit maturity: The maturity level of the fruit at harvest decides the length of its ripening period. More mature fruits goes through a lesser ripening period. A kalgudi user can find buyers beforehand and plan the ripening schedule to meet timely requirements.
• Climatic conditions: The shelf life of banana decreases with the increase in temperature. Exposure to direct sunlight also accelerates the ripening process. Kalgudi weather updates help in planning the operations across multiple geographical locations and keep the user updates about the weather conditions in all the locations of interest.
• Surface to volume ratio: Greater the surface to volume ratio of the fruit, lesser will be the loss of moisture. Hence, smaller fruits lose moisture faster and have a lesser lead time in the supply chain.
• Physical characteristics: Fruits with thicker peel can survive for a longer time as greater permeability of peel makes the fruit damage faster. This is another reason why small bananas have a short shelf life as often they have thinner peels. The stomatal density of the plant as a whole also determines the rate of water loss, hence more the density, faster will be the damage.

Farmers and traders are still trying to cope up with the challenges in Fresh Fruits segment. There is a gradual increase in consumption and producers are striving to meet the demand from time to time. A robust supply chain with proper infrastructure like warehouses and logistics is necessary to ensure availability of banana in all seasons.

Kalgudi serves as a solution to most of these challenges by serving as a platform that provides all necessary inputs at every stage of the value chain. It has a vast network of logistics providers, warehousers, traders and retailers. The day to day updates on weather and price, and requirement among the retailers and wholesalers, help in making better operational decisions to push best quality produce into the market at the right time and reap better profits.