GoOrganic.lk – An e-Business System for local Organic Farmers

Abstract

The web based solution to promote the organic farming by building a proper ecosystem between the local organic farmers and the consumers. The proposed web solution is a type of content management system that supports the e-Commerce transactions. The system is designed to support the farm product distribution hubs that receives the products from farmers and does door step delivery to consumers, which can be run by a small community of farmers or any other interested parties. Any user can access the system via internet; the front end of the system is implemented in a way that enlightens the users about the value of organic consumption and production with valuable information while promoting the local grown organic products currently available in the online store. This system allows both farmers and consumers to register online. The registered consumers can check their order history, also the system maintains the information of the registered consumers, in order to send newsletters, notifications, order dispatch messages, etc. The web live chat feature helps any visitor to clarify their queries in any of the local language. The visitors of the website can view who are the registered farmers of the system and the detail view of each farmers such as the list of farm details of each farmer and the each farm information contains the product information, the Location, the image and the image of the organic certificate. This information will enlighten the consumers about the background/history of the product they have purchased which will enable a strong interaction between the consumers and farmers. Each registered farmer will have a separate profile in the system, in which he/she can update their farm information along with the softcopy of the organic certificate obtained for each farm, which will be showcased to consumer in order to prove the quality of the products. Using the contact information provided in the personal profile information the system sends newsletters and alert mails to farmers. The system supports administrators on order management, inventory management, user management and system content management via the back end of the system. The UI of the system is designed to be very simple, informative and to provide the flavour of traditional agriculture to the visitors. The targeted users of initial version of the system are the community of English literate and having knowledge of web browsing.