ROOTSTALK FEATURES
Farmers are faced with many questions while growing crops. Which seed to use? What planting method to follow? Which fertiliser and pesticide to use? When and how to use them? What cultural practices to follow? Etc. They need advice at each step of a cropping cycle.
A crop advisory is a schedule of activities that farmers need to perform from the beginning till the end of a crop. It covers every aspect of crop cultivation — plant propagation, plant nutrition, plant protection, and other agronomic practices. Our partners independently develop advisories on all their target crops using RootsTalk.
At present, there are four roles available in RootsTalk — Partner, Farmer, Facilitator, and Seller. Features are listed below according to the roles.
'RootsTalk' — the Partner Web app
Among other things, Partners structure crop advisories, manage their experts, onboard dealers, and access data from the RootsTalk Web App.
A. Crop cycle management
1. Partners can include the crops of their choice and can independently structure advisories.
2. Each partner can create multiple profiles for a crop. A profile is defined by attributes like season, variety, duration, soil properties, irrigation facility, farming type, target market, and other factors. Advisories are structured for each crop profile.
3. Advisories can be location-specific; they can suit conventional, organic, or other farming principles; they can be adjusted to the local availability of inputs/resources; and they cover all interventions from pre-sowing to harvest.
4. The timelines in an advisory are flexible for both annual and perennial crops; they adjust to variable sowing/planting dates.
5. An advisory can contain input and non-input recommendations; there is a provision to include multimedia for vivid explanations to the farmer.
6. Alternative inputs can be suggested to ensure availability with the dealers.
7. Advisories can be edited to accommodate mid-season changes.
8. Advisories can be predesigned according to the extent of rainfall on any specific farm.
B. Crop health management
1.RootsTalk comes with a default crop health diagnosis feature
2.Partners can independently set up management plans for each crop health problem.
3.The management plans shall be made available to the farmers of the respective partners based on the problem detected
C. Expert management
Farmers can raise crop-related queries with our partners. Partners nominate experts to handle specific queries. The experts manage farmer queries through the FarmPundit app. Interactions between farmers and experts is in the form of text and multimedia. If needed, experts can contact farmers directly.
D. Facilitator (rural entrepreneur) management
The feature helps Partners connect with the facilitators to promote their advisories among the farmers and to help farmers in sourcing the recommended inputs from their dealers/retailers.
E. Dealer/Retailer management
Partners can easily onboard their dealers/retailers on RootsTalk. By doing so, they allow RootsTalk to connect their farmers with their dealers, thus making it possible for the farmers to procure the recommended crop inputs.
'FarmPal' — the Mobile app for Farmers
FarmPal is the mobile app for farmers. It connects them with (1) RootsTalk’s partners providing advisories, (2) Dealers providing agro-inputs, (3) Facilitators providing logistical services, and (4) Experts who resolve queries.
Subscribing advisories
A farmer can select a Partner of his/her own interest to receive advisories. FarmPal considers the specific attributes of a farm before assigning an advisory.
Location flexibility
A farmer can have plots in multiple locations, and cultivate the same crop species in different locations. FarmPal resolves the situation by assigning location- specific advisories.
Crop start flexibility
A farmer can designate an expected start date and avail pre-sowing advisories. The start date remains flexible to accommodate changes later. Start dates can be entered retrospectively too.
Advisories
Advisories are shown in the form of text and multimedia during the scheduled period. Farmers can indicate if a particular advisory was adopted by them.
Pest/problem identification
The diagnostics feature of the app allows the user to identify any crop health problem and obtain the management plans suggested by the Partner.
Input request
Farmers can request either the facilitators or the dealers for the recommended inputs. Inputs can be purchased in advance.
Ask expert
FarmPal enables farmers to raise queries in the form of text and multimedia to the experts of the partner organization. Further, they receive expert responses on the same app.
Local language
The content on FarmPal is available in Indian languages. The farmer can choose from the list of the languages.
'FarmAssist' — the Mobile App for Dealers/Facilitators
FarmAssist is the mobile app for the agro-input dealers. With this app, they (1) are directly connected to farmers, (2) receive and process purchase orders, (3) promote advisories, and (4) receive alerts on farmers’ requirements.
Promote FarmPal
FarmAssist enables both dealers and facilitators to promote the FarmPal app among farmers. They can promote the advisories of any Partner among the farmers
Input reminders
FarmAssist alerts the dealers/facilitators whenever the farmer they promoted requires a commercial input.
Receive input requests
FarmAssist is necessary for receiving and processing farmers' requests for commercial inputs. Although both roles can receive the input request, it is only the dealer who can process it.
Processing input requests
The dealers can choose among the brands available with them. FarmAssist does not ask for the price at which the dealer has sold an input. Dealers can choose to decline or postpone the supply of any input
Forwarding input requests
If a dealer is unable to supply all the required inputs, the farmer or facilitator can forward the input request to other dealers for procuring the remaining inputs
Local language
FarmAssist can be operated in local languages.
'FarmPundit' — the Mobile App for Experts
FarmPundit is the mobile app for experts who answer farmers’ queries. It helps them (1) receive and respond with text and multimedia, (2) escalate queries, and (3) interact with the farmers.
Unlimited expert linkages
A FarmPundit user can support one or many Partners. Along with their in-house experts, Partners can selectively associate with external experts to resolve farmer queries.
Primary and Panel experts
This feature allows a partner to designate primary experts to manage farmer queries. A primary expert can escalate queries to panel experts only if required.
Automated queue management
This feature distributes the queries across the primary experts. It allows the partner to easily scale-up or scale-down when the number of farmer queries increases or decreases, respectively.
Expert-Farmer connect
The feature allows the expert to connect with the farmer directly.
Resolve or reject a query
Experts can resolve a query by replying to it in the form of text, multimedia, weblink, etc. Experts can also reject an impertinent query.
Language management
FarmPundit manages the difference in the written language between farmers and experts. The partner can link an expert and farmers based on the common language between them. This also helps the partner in handling the differences in language.
Auto-escalation
If a query goes unanswered beyond three days, then FarmPundit automatically escalates the matter to the designated persons
