Citing the increase in Agri startups in the country, government is planning to set up a dedicated Cell for them. This cell would help to increase farmers income. Most Agri startups aim to increase efficiency of farmers, cut profit-making middlemen and introduce technology to farming. All these initiatives may help in increasing farmers income in India.
The Initiative
Ashok Dalwai, Chief Executive Officer at National Rainfed Area Authority (NRAA), announced at FICCI’s Nurturing Agri Innovations 2019 conference that the government may set up Agri entrepreneurial cells to encourage Agriculture based startups. 20% of Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojna fund will be reserved for establishing incubators and promoting entrepreneurs.
Need for Digital Platform
Ashok Dalwai emphasized the need for standardized and structured data that can help both farmers and entrepreneurs in several ways. Further, efforts need to be made to collect all agriculture-related data and upload it on the digital platform. The access to this platform must be free of cost and available to all.
Neelkamal Darbari, Managing Director of Small Farmers Agribusiness Consortium stated that agri startups play an essential role at the pre-harvest stage. Concerning Farmers Producers organization, she said that there are around 5000 FPO’s in the country that are carrying out business in traditional ways. Accommodating technology with FPO’s will surely be a step towards the development, helping the primary producers.
The Trend of Agri StartUps in India
Currently, India has more than 1090 agri tech startups that are working towards easing out the agricultural processes. These startups have become a major attraction to many domestic and international investors. Further, Gramophone, an Indore based startup that has raised around 3.5 million dollars in August 2019.
Dalwai also emphasized the relation between low profitability and farm practices. He said that small farms are much more profitable than large farms. Effective use of technology is all that it takes to increase small farmer’s profitability as it helps them to network and share costs.
In conclusion, the government is on its way to make changes at the ground level to bring big change.