Crowd sourcing for value chain management: a case of market decision support system in Sri Lankan agriculture market

Agriculture is a major contributor to economic growth, the only source that provides adequate food to prevent hunger and starvation, and has continued to play a pivotal role in the Sri Lankan economy, providing employment to 28.5% of the labor force as of 2015. Agriculture industry largely comprises a food crop sector and a plantation sector. The food crops sector is largely made up of small scale farmers growing rice, vegetables, fruits and field crops. Complexity of agricultural value chains causes decision making is an impossible task for individual actor and generates necessity for more efficient and effective decision support system. The latest advances in e-marketing and mobile-marketing have propitiated the rapid creation and expansion of mobile applications in marketing of agricultural products. Our approach was to create a digital market place through market decision support system and connect the value chain actors into an open platform through mobile application. Crowds connect to the open platform providing marketing insights to the value chain actors. The present approach facilitates to reduce the information gap, idea generation, decision support through a common platform which helps to empower the agricultural marketing in Sri Lanka. Specific aims were to promote traditional food production, provide advisory support, protecting and encouraging the entrepreneurs of underutilized crop production. This new reality, MDSS provided a common platform for value chain actors to join together and create market strategies. MDSS facilitated to generate healthy returns for all value chain actors.