India’s agricultural farming to attain revolution with ingression of technology
If we take a roundup of the agricultural sector, which is the primary source of livelihood for about 58 percent of India’s population. According to estimates, gross value added by agriculture, forestry, and fishing is estimated at Rs 18.53 trillion (US$ 271.00 billion) in FY18.
The food industry of India has been nonchalant with the aspiration of huge growth while increasing its contribution to world food trade every year. This is all due to its immense potential for value addition, particularly within the food processing industry.
Furthermore, the market size of food grain production, during 2017-18* crop year is estimated to record 284.83 million tonnes. In 2018-19, Government of India is targeting food grain production of 285.2 million tonnes.
From the financial perspective, as per the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPI), the Indian food processing industry has taken it to a whole new level while attracting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) equity inflow of about US$ 9.08 billion between April 2000 and March 2019.
Here’re excerpts of a few developments in investment procedure:
- Investments worth Rs 8,500 crore (US$ 1.19 billion) have been broadcasted in India for ethanol production.
- By the end of 2019, India is expected to start exporting sugar to China.
- The first mega food park in Rajasthan was inaugurated in March 2018.
- Agrifood start-ups in India received funding of US$ 1.66 billion between 2013-17 in 558 deals.
- In 2017, the agriculture sector in India witnessed 18 M&A deals worth US$ 251 million.
Lately, due to the availability of future preferences: Startups and technology firms have been looking forward to changing India’s agricultural landscape using newer and advanced business models.
For implementation purposes, these firms are taking a huge step to come across governments, insurers, banks, farming co-operatives, development agencies, and even corporate social responsibility programs to create a viable business and help farmers.
Despite the huge potential, most of the farmers have smallholdings. There are even cases even when they rent the land they farm on from others. It is likely that farmer distresses are widespread.
In connection of the same, when CropIn Technologies initiated a new endeavor in 2010 while trying to sell its agri-tech solutions directly to farmers. Sadly, the ROI was only Rs 6,000.
However, gradually, CropIn has customized each customer segment with a different value proposition. In some other project, CropIn is in collaboration with the World Bank in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh on a climate resilience project. The project consisted of a business model where farming communities can adopt technology to create sustainable benefits — like weather alerts on phone, best practices on farming, and advice on taking care of pest attacks.
Apart from that, CropIn is also active at finding agricultural loan opportunities with collaboration with markets like banks and non-banking financial companies.
Under similar project prospects, CropIn is working with public and private sector banks, NBFCs, and insurers to provide a platform that has data on the historical crop yields of a district.
Consequently, this helps in forecasting yields using machine learning. As a means of infrastructure, the company also uses remote sensing satellites to determine what crops are sown in a region. To make this possible, they use crop signatures to collect harvest data over the past five years.
Large technology companies, such as IBM and Microsoft, too are involved in the agri-tech space. As a means of the deal, the agriculture ministry signed a statement of intent earlier this month with IBM for a pilot study on using artificial intelligence and weather technology solutions in agriculture.
One of the provisions for the tie-ups with government includes using sensors to measure soil health and ground-level conditions. Furthermore, pilots that require placing sensors on farms are also placed underneath.
One of the wings of IBM; the weather company is all set to provide all the weather-related information to farmers. The report follows the data on soil moisture and temperature. Over the top, on an average, this aids farmers in making wise and correct decisions about how and when to irrigate.
Additionally, the company has tied up with agro-tech startup AgroStar to create crop disease prediction algorithms.
For further speculations, there are various organizations sponsored by state governments to explore potential markets for agri-tech companies.
For the coffee farmers, along with a tie-up with the Coffee Board of India, Eka Software has created a digital commodity management platform and blockchain platform to help farmers get a good price for their product while offering coffee roasters and exporters data on crop quality.
According to the CEO of TCS, NG Subramaniam, “ State governments are looking forward to investing in blockchain technology. For records, they are able to find cashew and shrimp exports more profitable domain with technology ingression. Along with coffee farming, we are also exploring opportunities for blockchain for other food commodities.”
With the involvement of such a revolutionary step of ingression of technology through blockchain, we can very soon expect improvement in agri-technology.
