[quote="Lisa-Cespedes"] Question 7 (17 Dec.) How do you foresee ICT impacting the agricultural value chain in the future? What roles do the public and private sectors have in its success? [/quote] I would like ICT to impact the agricultural value chain more than what it is being used for as of now. In India there have been a number of experiments on use of ICT, none in my knowledge which is sustainable, scalable and successful. Lot of value is lost in the value chain and the farmer does not get his dues, appropriate use of ICT should help farmers in getting right price for their produce. There is 400% markup / margin on what is paid to the farmer for his produce. If better ICT alongwith supporting supply chains are put in place, the farmers would get his rightful dues. There is a mixed role for Public & Private sector. The groundwork has to be done by public sector / government to enable the private sector to come up and accept the challenge. What I have seen, the development of applications on a trial basis is easy, but service delivery and that too on a viable revenue model is the challenge. India has about 0.6 million villages, and to reach these many locations in a financial feasible way is not possible for either private or public sector alone. ICT and specifically mobile technology has a great potential to address these challenges and I would like to see some good mobile applications and service delivery models addressing these issues.

I am Dr Devendra Kumar Punia, Associate Professor at FORE School of Management, New Delhi in IT area. I have worked on Agriculture Mission Mode Project under National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) of Government of India for Ministry of Agriculture. I have worked in IT & E-Governance area for last 14 years. I am also working on e-governance in Urban Sector in a DFID funded Government of Bihar project.