A Framework to leverage Cloud for Modernization of Indian Agricultural Produce Marketing System

In India, Information and Communication technology (ICT) is being leveraged as a modernization tool in almost every sector of economy such as health, education, and transportation. But when we consider the agricultural scenario in the Indian context, we realise that the ICT remains to be exploited to accrue its invaluable benefits. In recent times, the Government of India has introduced several initiatives to promote the application of ICT in agriculture sector. But when we compare the scale of ICT application in Indian agriculture sector with other developing countries like China, Brazil, etc., we find that application of ICT in Indian agriculture is yet to be applied on a significant magnitude. In this paper, we propose a cloud deployment model \"Agri-Bridge\", which provides access to agricultural market related information to farmers facing market connectivity constraints and acute capital shortage. Also, this model will operate as a bridge between the farmers and consumers within the existing agricultural produce marketing chain. This model utilizes the existing Government services, Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) databases, retail market sources besides leveraging cloud computing, mobile phone services and Internet services to provide a solution to the problem of lack of access to real-time market information to the farmers, hence modernising the Indian agricultural produce marketing system.