AgriBazaar.com. my: Malaysia's Answer to Bridging the Rural Digital Divide and Beyond for the Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Sector

摘要

The Malaysian Government's efforts in introducing information and communication technology (ICT) to the agriculture sector is paying off. as tanners in Johor. Malaysia begin using the internet to sell their produce online through a free vinual marketplace called AgriBazaar (www.agribazaar.com.my ). The objective is to value add the older conventional ways of doing business via an e-commerce application (E-AgBusiness). viz. by offering an alternative/additional channel for marketing agriculture produce and processed products in a B2B/B2C (busincss-to-busmess/business-to-consumer) environments -- which runs through the entire food supply chain. Started in July 2003, Balu Pahar acted as a pilot community to receive training on the use of computers anda step-by-step familiarisation on how to trade their produce-over the internet. Since then total value of active offers stands at close to RM1 million, with over 1.500 registered market players already online nationwide, including 28 foreigners - therebyopens trade potentialities tor the agriculture community. This augurs well for global trade as Malaysia moves on to embrace WTO/AFTA, i.e. going beyond addressing the rural digital divide issue per se.The Government has now accepted that under AgriTIGeR. a cost-cffcctive B2B supply chain management (SCM) application and the Agribazaar portal will function as an exchange gateway for agricultural communities and traders to conduct online transactions. ANational Rollout Plan to introduce it nationwide is in the offing. On-going further enhancements to the portal will include three/four more modules to the current three that are already up and running. E-Plan module, which show cases expected productionof seasonal fruits, is the latest component now ready for use.