CHENNAI: On a parched agricultural land in Mathur village near Krishnagiri many decades ago, it was the turn of 11-year-old Murali Selvaraj to take a penalty kick that would help his team win the match. However, even during that tumultuous moment, the voice that reached his ears clearly was the heated conversation his father, a small-time cereal trader, was having with a few middle-men merchants behind the goalpost. Though he tried hard to focus on the ball, his attention drifted to his father’s pleas. The football match was won the next minute, but the victory for the real test that began in Murali’s heart that day, had to wait a few more years.
Fast forward to 2011, Murali kick-starts an education website for farmers, AgriSakthi. “Adulteration and hoarding of crops by third-party wholesale traders are the primary reasons for price instability in production. They also jack up the cost and farmers are always at the receiving end. This was my reason for starting the website,” said Murali, adding that a dearth of information for farmers is the major problem in the country.
The idea was an aggregation of farm markets to improve the income of the farmers. With the help of his expertise in media, computer programming, and agriculture, Murali decided to include every aspect of farming, such as weather prediction, commodity price, market conditions, cropping patterns, and expert opinions, in the portal.
For maintaining ethical standards, Murali declines advertisement offers from fertiliser companies. He spends money from his own pocket and relies little on online advertisements. “The moment money comes up as the topic of discussion, farmers become suspicious of our intentions,” said Murali.
AgniShakthi became the first farming-related mobile application in India to be launched in the play store and currently caters to over two lakh users. However, this number doesn’t fully represent its user base. Murali has been roping in all kinds of techniques to disseminate the information through social media. “AgriSakthi’s reach has spread to Sri Lanka and Malaysia, where the Tamil diaspora has a significant presence,” he said, with glee.
Walking down memory lane, he recollected his interaction with Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who suggested him to develop the application in different languages. He said, “We talked in Tamil and he recognised my work. I am currently working on translating the portal to 11 other Indian languages, including Hindi.”
The fast-expanding programme is also making its way into the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Thiral.in, which has been developed by Murali, tracks real-time price data, farmer suicides and visualises data with Natural Language Processing (NLP). He is aiming to develop this framework to identify crop diseases and ensure quality. Murali has also roped in agricultural students, members of local communities, and volunteers from Tiruvallur to Thanjavur to visit farmers in person. “We are in talks with insurance providers to assist ailing farmers,” he said.
Thanks to the immense result, the team has set its eyes on the supply chain gaps in the agricultural market. “Farmer markets should be aggregated with their cooperation, like the Israeli Kibbutz,” Murali pointed out.
Racking up goal after goal, Murali’s next target is to set up an ‘AgriShakthi Angadi’ to sell over 40 products. “Giving preference to organic farmers, we want to provide fine-quality food to consumers. We will then manufacture value-added products and create a brand,” said Murali, hoping that this would stop the migration of farmers to urban areas.