ikisan can be of immense help to any farmer. It can help you access information about any agricultural topic at the click of a button. Detailed, location-specific information about crops, soil and weather. Information you can even access in the form of maps. Information on agricultural techniques, products and innovations. The latest news as it happens, up-to-date market information about commodities, products, services and companies. And that's not all. You can use it as your personal consultant on any agriculture related topic. Just send in your questions and our experts will answer them for you.

You can even use ikisan Chat as a forum for exchanging views on topics of mutual interest with other farmers. While the Discussion forum is where you get to chat with experts in various areas pertaining to agriculture.

The ikisan Bulletin board is an excellent place to post your views on anything related to agriculture. Any new technique you have discovered or any question that you have can be put up on the bulletin board to be shared with other farmers for mutual benefit.

To get in touch with us all you need to do is click on the 'About Us' link provided then Click on the 'Contact Us' sub-link. You will find detailed information about how to get in touch with ikisan.

Alternately, if you have a specific question, you could click on the 'Let's Talk' link, go to the 'Ask Us' sub-link and fill in the form provided. We will try to answer your queries as soon as possible either through e-mail or regular post.

ikisan attempts to be the first portal for the Indian farming community.

While, promoted by the Nagarjuna Group, ikisan is an independent company, with its own Board of Directors and Management.

The primary objective of ikisan is "To enable the Indian Farming Community take informed decisions".

To enable ikisan achieve its objective, there are many unique features on ikisan

• The first site of its kind to be promoted by an agriculture business company
• It will be available in all major Indian languages
• Information will be offered at Tehsil/Mandal level
• Closely focussed on Agriculture, and not Agriculture Information, from the farmer's perspective
• Addresses the entire spectrum of Information needs of the Indian farming community
• Will enable the Indian farmer have access to buy inputs and sell outputs
• Uses GIS exhaustively to enable a farmer view data spatially and then make his choice

By incorporating the features that are unique to it ikisan is able to offer to its primary audience, the Indian farming community:

• INFORMATION - GENERAL
  • Information on Infrastructure, agriculture and others in rural India delivered on a map of the farmer's Tehsil/Mandal, using GIS (Geographical Information System)
  • Irrigation data for the sources related to the farmer's location updated, for now, twice a week and in time on a daily basis
  • Commodity price data, for the markets serving the farmer's specific location, on a daily basis
  • Weather information, with a 4 day forecast , updated daily
  • News, national and district level on a daily basis
• INFORMATION - CROP RELATED
  • Information on a range of crops, with a lot of visual depiction, structured to enable easy search, in the language of the farmer
  • Updates on Crop Situation in the farmer's specific location
• INFORMATION - PRODUCT RELATED
  • Information on a range of Products, their attributes, the brands, their prices, their availability in the farmer's location

ikisan is in the process of, tying up with feed providers for information, setting up field teams for sourcing site specific data.

Information will thus be updated on a regular basis

To its primary audience, ikisan, today, offers:

• Comprehensive agriculture information from the farmer's perspective and in the farmer's language, with a powerful search engine.
• Comprehensive information on infrastructure and other general information
• In depth information on product options and the nearest source for a product

• An option to buy the product on line
• An option to sell his produce online

Having recognised that computers have yet to make a mark in rural India, and given ikisan's in-depth understanding of the farmer and his attitudes ikisan's approach to the issue is different.

ikisan is setting up manned kiosks in different rural towns across India which are equipped with a computer and have access to the Internet.

The idea is to get farmers to visit the site and understand that the Computer is just the medium for information acquisition.

While focussing on agriculture, which is the key to rural India, ikisan realises that social change is imperative to rural prosperity. Therefore ikisan would deliver comprehensive content on

• Literacy
• Health & Hygiene
• Gender Perspective
• Adaptive Technologies

ikisan also realises that it could play a major role in providing a basket of choices to the rural community, in the consumer goods space. This would enable him keep pace with his urban cousins.