Kissan Link

Abstract

The Agriculture sector continues to play a central role in Pakistan’s economy. It is the second largest sector, accounting for over 21 percent of GDP, and remains by far the largest employer, absorbing 45 percent of the country’s total labour force. Nearly 62 percent of the country’s population resides in rural areas, and is directly or indirectly linked with agriculture for their livelihood. While on one hand, the sector is a primary supplier of raw materials to downstream industry, contributing substantially to Pakistan’s exports, on the other, it is a large market for industrial products such as fertilizer, pesticides, tractors and agricultural implements. Despite its critical importance to growth, exports, incomes, and food security, the Agriculture sector has been suffering from secular decline. Growth in the sector, particularly in the crop sub‐ sector, has been falling for the past three decades. Productivity remains low, with yield gaps rising. Critical investments in new seeds, farming technology and techniques, and the water infrastructure are not being made. Without major new investments in Agriculture, it is unclear how prepared Pakistan would be to tackle emerging challenges in agriculture. Information and communication technology in agriculture, also known as e agriculture, is developing and applying innovative ways to use ICTs in the rural domain, with a primary focus on agriculture. It is seen as an emerging field focusing on the enhancement of agricultural and rural development through improved information and communication processes. To cater the above issue, such an ICT improvised web platform must be provided that links the seller to buyer and buyer to seller. With this system in place, a farmer would be able to search the required item by mentioning the specifications, select and review the most suitable one and patch up with the seller. On the contrary, he can also sell his equipment by uploading the picture of it with necessary product details and his region. ICT has been used to ease the matters in Agricultural industry for a long time now and such systems as described above, do exist partially in the International markets e.g. ‘farms.com’ and ‘agriaaffaires.co.uk’ but no such system is available for local Pakistani market that address its particular region specific needs and requirements. Kissan Link links farmer to farmer and farmer to buyer. The input required by the farmer is the product he wants to sell or rent. The system will allow the farmer to upload the details of the equipment and publish it as an advertisement for the market. The customers who wants to buy the equipment will search for the required agriculture equipment and subsequently contact the seller. In the future, in addition to the consistent support provided Kissan Link is live as of now at “Kissanlink.com”, it is planned to have an upgrade to make the system more usable for the local farmer by introducing automatic form filling by analyzing the image of the product.