ITC E-Choupal - Corporate Social Responsibility in India - Agricultural Exporters India - ITC IBD

<body> <h1>E Choupal - Agricultural Exporters in India - Corporate Social Responsibility in India - ITC International Business Division</h1> <h6>ITC's International Business Division, one of India's largest exporters of agricultural commodities, has conceived e-Choupal as a more efficient supply chain aimed at delivering value to its customers around the world on a sustainable basis. </h6> <h6>The e-Choupal model has been specifically designed to tackle the challenges posed by the unique features of Indian agriculture, characterised by fragmented farms, weak infrastructure and the involvement of numerous intermediaries, among others. </h6> <h6>'e-Choupal' also unshackles the potential of Indian farmer who has been trapped in a vicious cycle of low risk taking ability > low investment > low productivity > weak market orientation > low value addition > low margin > low risk taking ability. This made him and Indian agribusiness sector globally uncompetitive, despite rich & abundant natural resources. </h6> <h6>ITC's unique strength in this business is the extensive backward linkages it has established with the farmers. This networking with the farming community has enabled ITC to build a highly cost effective procurement system. ITC has made significant investments in web-enabling the Indian farmer. Christened 'e-Choupal', ITC's web plan for the farmer centres around providing Internet kiosks in villages. Farmers use this technology infrastructure to access on-line information from ITC's farmer-friendly websites. Data accessed by the farmers relate to the weather, crop conditions, best practices in farming, ruling international prices and a host of other related information. </h6> <h6>The websites provide data in both English and the local language. Currently, the 'e-Choupal' websites provide information to Soya farmers in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan (<a href="http://www.soyachoupal.com" target="_blank">www.soyachoupal.com</a>), coffee planters in Karnataka (<a href="http://www.plantersnet.com" target="_blank">www.plantersnet.com</a>), aquaculturists in Andhra Pradesh (<a href="http://www.aquachoupal.com" target="_blank">www.aquachoupal.com</a>) and wheat farmers in Uttar Pradesh (<a href="http://www.echoupal.com" target="_blank">www.echoupal.com</a>). ITC plans to extend the 'e-Choupal' to cover 10 million farmers across 100,000 villages covering 15 Indian states. </h6> </body>