Chapter-1 Introduction

This chapter contains all the context of Bolbhav including a brief overview of the the frontend and the backend technology.

Abstract concept

Bolbhav is an attempt to build a robust societal network among farmers, based on the principles of data cooperative, where they exchange high-quality data amongst themselves and enable each other to make more informed decisions.

1. Users contribute personal non-identifiable data.

2. For their contribution, users earn rewards in the form of in-app currency.

3. Rewards are used to access the aggregate dataset contributed by other users.

4. Users can also exchange rewards with other users in-kind or in cash and earn additional income.

Understanding Bolbhav through use case of crop sale data

Farmers contribute sale receipt of crop sold in the auction at agricultural market known as Mandi. The contribution involves image of sale receipt with crops in backdrop. Sale receipt has datapoints like date, market name, crop name, buyer name, quantity and price. Farmers can contribute not only their data but, with consent, the data of their peers also. Each contribution is then validated by other users and Bolbhav team. Users who contributed or validated the data receives tokens, which are in-app rewards. Users use tokens to see all other receipt submitted on the platform and aggregated statistics. Users can also earn money by selling their tokens to other user.

Bolbhav three year goal

Bolbhav will be a use case agnostic data crowdsourcing platform that follows principles of a cooperative and provides essential decision making support to the rural agrarian households. By end of Dec 2026, we aim for crowdsourcing approximately 1 billion unique data points annually across vital livelihood areas such as mandi sale, farmgate sale, weather, insurance, credit, agri-inputs, and livestock management.

What does Bolbhav mean?

Bol and Bhav are two hindi words that mean Speak and Price respectively. Together they mean Speak Price. Bolbhav started as a WhatsApp chatbot in October 2021 that delivered crop prices using public database.