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Dec 13, 2003

"A chain is only as strong as the weakest link." --Author Unknown

Computers on Farms

A large number of farmers in rural India are breathing a little bit easier these days. For 3 or 4 decades, they have been locked into a government-organized trading scheme that nearly ensures they get fleeced by the middlemen when they sell their grains at auction. But in just a couple of years, with the help of a few thousand computers hooked up to the internet, more than a million farmers have started to track fair grain prices, bypass middleman traders, and increase profit margins on their crops -- by an average of 2.5 percent or about $6 per ton.