TITLE OF INVENTION

CREATION OF INTERNET BASED NETWORK BETWEEN FARMERS VENDORS AND CONSUMERS.

FIELD OF INVENTION
The present invention in general relates to application of internet technology in agriculture domain
and more specifically establishing internet based network among farmers, vendors and consumers.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Right from the inception of green-revolution in India the way farmers reach out to consumers has
never changed. With old way farmers bring in their agro-products like vegetables, grains, fruits etc. to
central agriculture market and based on total incoming/outgoing quantity of agro-products they sell
agro-products to vendors. Thereafter chain of vendors comes in picture, local vendor who make initial
purchase of agro-product handover such agro-products to vendors in big cities. Once agro-products
reach in big-cities a hierarchy of vendors comes in picture which ultimately does job of reselling agroproducts to end consumers ranging from small households, caterers, hotel-operators to food-courts
and malls.
There are couple of inefficiencies associated with above described traditional system, which could be
described as follows

With traditional system there is no way with which farmers can directly reach out to the big
consumers like caterers, hotel-operators etc. even though they are capable of. Because of
such limitation farmers have to sell their agro-products to local vendors, and link of vendors
causes huge increase in price of agro-products when at the end they are delivered to end
consumer. Which puts both farmers and consumers in unnecessary monetary loss that can be
avoided otherwise.

Assuming for reliability big consumers decides deal with vendors to fulfil their daily agroproduct needs. Old hierarchy of vendors typically creates monopoly within particular area.
Because of that very few options of vendors big-consumers are left with, which leads to
monetary losses and compromises in quality of agro-products.

Traditional system of agro-business affects hierarchy of vendors as well. As vendor has very
little information about broad-spectrum of consumers, they cannot reach out to consumers
outside their area and contacts; putting limit on their business growth in potential areas.

OBJECT OF INVENTION
As there is no efficient way to establish network among various entities like farmers, vendors and
consumers in agro-business we see stagnant business growth. Old ways of making contacts viz. faceto-face, phone-to-phone prove to be inefficient as they are not capable to bring together broad
diaspora of farmers, vendors and consumers.
Over period of time internet has become widespread not only in urban areas but in rural areas as well.
GRPS/EDGE technologies offer internet connectivity at very reasonable rates. By 2014 1/10th of rural
population in India has internet access mostly by means of mobiles/smartphones which is projected
to reach to the mark of 5/10th by 2017. Great majority of urban population already has internet

connectivity. So in coming years each entity of agro-business i.e. farmer, vendor consumer will have
access to internet by means of smartphones/computers.
Foundation of internet connectivity is used by present invention to establish internet based network
among farmers, vendors and consumers. This interconnected network of farmers, vendors and
consumers (a.k.a online-agro-network) offers various advantages over traditional way of agrobusiness which are described as follows.

Internet based network among farmers and consumers (online-agro-network) facilitates

direct connectivity between famers and end consumers. Individual farmer or group of
farmers which are capable of satisfying need of big-consumers like caterers, hotel
operators and malls can directly trade agro-products to such big-consumers skipping
huge chain of intermediate vendors. Such direct trade is win-win situation for both
farmers and consumers.

Some consumers has varying needs of agro-products which at time could not be handled
directly by farmers or group of farmers in such consumers decide to trade with vendors.
The online-agro-network gives way to consumers to choose vendors who can offer
reliable and cost effective service. Basically such network increases connectivity of
consumers and vendors giving more options to consumers to deal with best vendors.

Online-agro-network expose vendors to broad set of consumers (not confined to only

particular region) at the same time vendor can connect himself to range of farmers
producing broad-spectrum of agro-products. The online-agro-network enables vendor to
understand and satisfy needs of wide range of consumers with the help of network of
farmers.

In general online-agro-network enables consumers search through available options of

vendors and farmers who can fulfil their needs; enables farmers to post availability of
agro-products and search potential consumers; enables vendors to know the
requirements of end consumers and connect with farmers who can help vendor to fulfil
such requirements.

Effective turn-around time to fulfil consumer requirement is reduced drastically in onlineagro-network as consumer can get information about availability of agro-products,
suppliers (farmers/vendors) quickly which effectively takes period of 3-4 days otherwise.

STATEMENT OF INVENTION
Internet based network (online-agro-network) among farmers, vendors and consumers consists of
following novel features.
1. Way to establish internet based connectivity between various entities in agro-business like
farmers, vendors and consumers.
2. Way to create information management system, which deals with managing, consolidating,
validating, propagating information collected from various entities in agro-business like
farmers, vendors and consumers.

3. Way to access, update information from information management system (IMS) of onlineagro-network.
SUMMARY OF INVENTION
Online-agro-network between farmers, vendors and consumers consists of following important
components:
1. Communication servers.
2. Smartphone application (online-agro-network-app).
3. Information management system (IMS).
Various entities in agro-business who want to be part of this online-agro-network need to have
smartphone app (online-agro-network-app) installed on their smartphones, the online-agro-networkapp will ensure the connectivity to communication server by using internet. Communication server
will ensure reception of updates from various nodes and broadcast of updates to interested entities
in network. Information received by communication server from various entities connected to
network is fed to information management system (IMS). IMS takes care of saving, updating,
validating information gathered which is then used by communication servers to broadcast, unicast
to online-agro-network-app running on various nodes.
A farmer who is connected to online-agro-network will update availability of various agro-products
produced by him using online-agro-network-app, same kind of updates will be posted by all farmers
connected to the online-agro-network. On the other hand consumers like caterers, hotel-operators,
malls who are in need of range of agro-products can check availability of such agro-products using
online-agro-network-app. Such consumers can directly co-ordinate with farmers or vendors
connected to online-agro-network to trade agro-products.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

Figure 1 is generalized illustration of how various entities in agro-business will be connected to
communication servers, and interconnection between communication servers and information
management system.

Figure 1

Figure 2 illustrates how farmers, consumers and vendors can connect with each other with help of
communication servers and management information system.

Figure 2

Figure 3 is flow chart showing how farmers can connect with potential consumers directly or indirectly
through vendors to sell agro-products. More specifically this flow chart shows steps involved during
selling of agro-products with the help of online-agro-network.

Figure 3

Figure 4 is a flow chart showing how vendor can make use of online-agro-network to establish
connection with potential consumers and how he can fulfil need of consumers by connecting to the
farmers; more specifically this flow chart shows various steps involved in such interaction between
consumers-vendors-farmers focussing on the role of vendor.

Figure 4

Figure 5 is a flow chart showing how consumer can make use of online-agro-network to buy agroproducts directly from farmers or vendors; more specifically this flow chart shows various steps
involved in such transaction between consumers-vendors-farmers focussing on the role of consumer.

Figure 5

DETAILED DESCRIPTION
Internet based network (online-agro-network) among farmers, vendors, consumers is fundamentally
composed of a smartphone application (online-agro-network-app), communication servers and
information management system (IMS).
An online-agro-network-app running on android smartphone will ensure connectivity of online-agronetwork entity to the communication server as shown in figure1. Basically online-agro-network-app
is going to use internet connectivity established by the smartphone by the mean of data-connection
or wi-fi connection. To become part of online-agro-network farmers, vendors, consumers need to
install online-agro-network-app on their smartphones and register on the online-agro-network. A
connectivity between online-agro-network-app and communication server will ensure transfer of
registration details into IMS, so that such registration details could be used to verify user authenticity
when user is trying use online-agro-network next time for business.
Communication server is nothing but an application running on high end computer system with
enough memory and processing power. As shown in figure2 communication server provides anchoring
point to online-agro-network-app running on smartphones of every entity of online-agro-network.
Based on processing power of underlying computer system a single communication server has limit
on how much anchoring points it can manage simultaneously; taking that into consideration agronetwork can have multiple communication servers each server providing anchoring point to onlineagro-network-apps from particular region. To establish connectivity between entities from one region
served by one communication server to entities in other region served by another communication
server, communication servers are connected to each other. Interconnection-architecture between
communication servers create a virtual mesh network, which facilitates seamless, physical borderless
connectivity between entities in online-agro-network.
When multiple entities gets connected to online-agro-network there has to be some way to manage
information of every entity. IMS provides way to store, update, retrieve, consolidate and filter
information collected from entities in online-agro-network. IMS is formed of high-performance
computer systems connected to backend database system. Based on performance considerations the
architecture of IMS can vary from centralized system to distributed system. As shown in figure2 all
communication servers are connected to IMS. All communication servers feed information collected
from online-agro-network-apps to IMS. IMS takes care of consolidating information and storing it to
persistent data store with help of database-system, so that filtered information can be retrieved when
needed by communication servers. IMS hold capability to operate in pull as well as in push mode. IMS
periodically sends pull request to all connected communication servers to pull information from all
connected entities. In same manner IMS sends push request to connected communication servers to
push notification on apps upon occurrence of particular event to interested entities.
Figure3 is a flow-chart describing how farmers can become part of online-agro-network and use
online-agro-network to sell agro-products to broad spectrum of consumers or vendors. As shown in
flow-chart after installing app and registration on online-agro-network farmer can post availability of
agro-products produced in farm. After posting availability of agro-product farmer can search
consumers in need of that agro-product with the help of online-agro-network-app. If farmer can locate
consumer who is willing to make deal with farmer, farmer can directly deliver agro-product to
consumers leading to monetary benefits to both farmer and consumer as chain of vendors gets
bypassed. At times it is possible that farmer wont find appropriate consumer as the quantity
produced by him is less, in such cases farmer can connect to vendor who can thereafter take
responsibility of selling that agro-product to consumers. With the help of online-agro-network-app

farmers can contact multiple choices of vendors who can sell agro-products on behalf of farmers and
make deal with vendor who offers them best possible price and service.
As shown in figure4 flow-chart vendors on other hand will be acting as connecting link between
farmers and vendors. Once they are part of online-agro-network they can get in touch with large
number of consumers, and they can connect to broad-spectrum of farmers from various locations who
can help vendor to fulfil the requirements of consumers (traditional agro-business model has
limitation on how many farmers and consumers a vendor can connect with, which puts serious limits
on expansion of vendors business beyond confined limits). Once vendor becomes part of online-agronetwork by registration through online-agro-network-app, using that app vendor can search
consumers who are in need of agro-products and who preferably wants to do business with vendors.
Consumers who wants to business with vendors over farmers are those consumers whose
requirements of agro-products cannot be fulfilled by single farmer. Using online-agro-network-app
vendors can search such consumers, after finalising deal vendor thereafter takes responsibility of
fulfilling need of consumer. Next step vendor have to work-out is finding appropriate set of farmers
who can provide required agro-products, using online-agro-network-app vendor can search
availability of needed agro-products in nearby area. After setting up deal with appropriate set of
farmers who are ready to supply agro-products vendor collects those agro-products from chosen set
of farmers and deliver them to consumers.
Figure5 is a flow-chart showing how consumers can become part of online-agro-network to buy agroproducts directly from wide range of farmers or vendors. The advantage of agro-network based agrobusiness over traditional way is that consumer gets huge options of farmers and vendors, among them
consumer can choose one who offers them best possible price and service. As shown in fibure5 flowchart consumer becomes part of agro-network by doing registration through online-agro-networkapp, if consumer is in need of agro-products he can check availability of such products using the app.
App gives out list of farmers as well as vendors who can fulfil need of agro-products, based on the
need consumer can get in touch with farmers or vendors. If consumers need of agro-product can be
fulfilled by single farmer consumer can make deal with appropriate farmer but if consumer is looking
for wide ra*nge of agro-products which cannot be fulfilled by single farmer in that case consumer
looks out for appropriate vendor who can fulfil such need. Once the deal is finalized either farmer of
vendor thereafter takes responsibility of delivery of agro-products to consumer.
The invention herein describes how internet based network (online-agro-network) can be established
between farmers, vendors and consumers. It also describes important building blocks of such network
and architecture that makes connection, interaction possible between such building blocks leading to
practical realization of online-agro-network. It will be apparent to those of skill in the art that the
present invention effectively uses smartphones internet connectivity to connect online-agro-networkapp to all other online-agro-network-apps in online-agro-network routed through backbone of
communication servers and IMS. Skilled practitioners in the art will likewise recognize that many other
enhancement and variations of the present invention are possible. Furthermore, other enhancements
of the invention may expand on the presently described architecture to extend the scale and reach of
the system's implementation.

WHAT IS CLAIMED IS
1. A method for creating internet based network (online-agro-network) among farmers,
vendors, consumers. The method comprising: use of smartphones internet connectivity to
connect said online-agro-network-app to all other said online-agro-network-apps in said
online-agro-network routed through said interconnectivity-architecture of said
communication servers and said IMS.
2. The online-agro-network-app recited in claim 1 which allows farmers, vendors and consumers
to connect to online-agro-network using smartphones internet connectivity.
3. The communication server recited in claim 1 which acts as anchoring point for said onlineagro-network-apps and establishes connectivity between said online-agro-network-apps
using internet connectivity.
4. The information management system (IMS) recited in claim 1 which acts as central data store
for information collected from said online-agro-network-apps and interacts with said
communication servers for storing, retrieving, updating, filtering, consolidating collected
information.
5. The interconnectivity-architecture of said communication servers and said IMS recited in
claim 1 wherein each said communication-server will be connected to every other said
communication-server and to said IMS for enabling connectivity and information transfer
between said online-agro-network-apps connected to different said communication-servers.