I dreamed a Smiling farmer --(a selfish idea to ensure my 3 meals a day)

Nagabhushanam is a peasant from adilabad growing onions on his leased 2 acre land for which he bought the seeds at INR 400/kg expecting he can sell the outcome for atleast INR 50/kg. 3 moths are over and the price dropped to 25. This was the case still going on since he started farming. How many times a small farmer can resort himself not to commit a suicide? A so called wise suggestion an educated analyst can give is to quit the farming. What can be the situation if all the farmers follow those wise advises. Can I (you) get 3 delicious full meals a day with with an extra privilege to complain on it.

Rajanna Reddy is another dryland farmer from Ananthapuram sowed Green Chillies at the same time when a few hundreds of farmers opted the same without knowing the actual demand. Right when their miserable day arrived they had no other option than selling the entire yield to a mere price of INR 10 a kg for which the cost of investment was INR 25/kg. What can all those hundreds of vexed and doomed farmers do? Launch a protest to force the Government to exempt their farm loans!

Paparayudu is a an old and experienced farmer from Eluru of West Godavari who has been growing paddy since last 30 years and every time he has to compromise in selling them at a 'no loss no gain' price for his toiling efforts of 90 days under the hide & seek game of seasonal rainfall. And the most difficult thing for him to digest is that the other vegetables and groceries are coming at a price as dear as gold or silver. Can somebody think of guiding him to choose other profitable crop for his demographic and soil quality conditions?

All the answers to these questions can only be answered by an Oracle only. Well, I am not talking here about the multi-national giant company Oracle, but a so called fortune teller. When the most intelligent Indian can forecast an equity price to profit a billionaire, can estimate a countries GDP growth and even the number of MP seats a particular party can win using statistics or other advanced science, should we really need an Oracle?

Can we address these poor farmers troubles as intelligently as a Facebook /Google developer can find an optimal buying choices for an on line customer to advertise on websites.

The fact is that we are indebted to them at least thrice a day for our food and parties involving pizzas and KFC chickens whenever we want. We are now living in a world where a meteorologist can effectively predict whether it will rain in this week or not for at least next month. Similarly, I ask the most advanced and intellectual community of India, Can we predict what the price of onions after 3 months for Nagabhushanam? or Can we suggest a better crop for Paparayudu to see him smiling for he got some profit through farming in his lifetime. Can we inform Rajanna Reddy that Green chillies have already been sowed by 100 more farmers than yesterday so that he can wait for some more days or chose another demanding seed?

Agri-Informatics is the lifesaving ‘Oracle’, I am going to propose. It can predict a particular crops price and demand from place to place and time to time (in space-time). It should be sensitive to all the key factors like,

• Season-wise demand of an agri-product.
• Acres of land under agriculture for a particular seed with their recorded age of growth.
• The expected rainfall data from meteorology department.
• International and national bans and lifts on exports and imports of specific goods
• Related to a crop.
• News on Minimum support price levied.
• New food subsidy schemes. Subsidized costs of seeds and fertilizers.
• Changes in Electricity tariffs for their effect on bore-well dependent irrigation for
• Agriculture.
• Variation in prices of alternate substitutes for an agri-product.
• Existing stockpile in FCI and private go-downs.
• Fuel costs on transportation.
• The buying power of prospective consumers for some specific agri-goods.
• Rise and falls in demand from food processing agencies and junk food sellers.
• Natural disasters like floods, El Nino and droughts.

Mathematically one can establish relations between change in price and demand with respect to time and place, as well.

Denote P(t,x) and D(t,x) are the price and demand respectively for an agri-product 'A ' at time t and place x. Then in terms of partial derivatives of P and D a coupled simultaneous system of Partial Differential Equations (PDE) can be imagined as follows.

Suppose, if today, (i.e. at t=0 day), the price P(0, Nellore) and demand D(0, Nellore) are known for a place x=Nellore then the above stated PDE can calculate P(t, Nellore) and D(t, Nellore) for t=1 day (i.e. tomorrows price ). Once the price at t=1 is known the same above equation is iterated to find the price on t=2 day as well but with slight possibility of small errors. For solving these PDE it involves a lot of mathematical effort and super computational power on large grids such at the scale of a country and for a sequence of future 30 days. Some serious efforts have already been made in this regard by Tamilnadu Agricultural University.

For more information see- http://www.tnagmark.tn.nic.in/price_forecast.htm

Let us all wish our farmers a happy smile in future for their handsome profits being the reason.

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