ITC MAARS to connect 10 mn farmers to markets

ITC WILL HAVE over 4,000 farmer producer organisations (FPOs) connected via its meta market for advanced agricultural rural services (MAARS) over the next five years, benefitting ten million farmers.

- SANDIP DAS Sehore

The phygital platform will also be buttressed with a new host of services, including crop insurance.

Currently, 1.7 million farmers from 1,700 FPOs are on the MAARS network, which offers personalised services to farmers for farm-gate purchase, fertiliser usage, weather advisories, and climate-resilient agricultural practices. It also enables the farmers to access bank credit through kisan credit cards.

Crop insurance and local weather alerts, and geo-tapping of farms for ensuring traceability of the produce, are among the new services to be added to the platform.

S Ganesh Kumar, CEO, ITC's agribusiness division, said with over 1.7 million farmers already registered on MAARS, an ecosystem for production of quality produce has been developed. The target, he said, is to enroll 10 million farmers by 2030 who would be the backbone of the company's agri-value chain for sourcing of produce.