Agritech Startups

Agritech startups or Agricultural technology involves environmentally sound and sustainable farming methods, implemented widely in agriculture industry in order to attain profitability and efficiency, both. Argtech is a value innovation as Agriculture and India has a unique bond. Since Indian agriculture has been the backbone of the economy for several years, it determines the standard of living for nearly 60% of the population apart from contributing significantly in the GDP of India. Agritech startups are required to improve rural incomes, safeguard farmers interests and promote economic turnover, alongside securing India's nutritional and food needs. This calls for consistent attention, rigorous investments, wide awareness and continuous promotion of the Agritech startups in India. Before moving to the decade of Agritech startups and present innovative strides in the industry, it is necessary to discuss the fallouts of current agriculture system in India and its impact:

Obstacles in Indian Agriculture:

It is a known fact, that Agriculture in India has an overwhelming market cap but it still continues to lack in several sections.

• One of the main concerns is that the earning per hectare of crops in India are customarily low as compared to global standards.
• Faulty water management and lack of organized water resource management techniques are another few reasons for a low agricultural output in India.
• Lack of advanced farming techniques also leads to a fall out in agricultural productivity which consequently affects end results. There are several poor farming communities who are unaware of modern techniques and aren’t habitual of them which ultimately leads to reduction in revenues.
• Improper storage facilities and inadequate marketing channels leads to wastage and also leads to poor agricultural exports. Quality maintenance is integral which is continuously missing from the agricultural lifecycle.
• Lack of research and development in the industry has acted as a neglect and has affected the ambitions of various farmers who live to only farm.
• Consequent failures in revenues have destabilized lives of several farmers and their family. A heavy loan history has, as we know, led to several farmer suicides further demolishing hopes for the family they leave behind.

How the Government is helping and its fallouts? Government Initiatives

Since past few years, the dilemma attached to agriculture decline has provoked the Government to act. The Government has laid strong emphasis on commercializing Indian agriculture, here are few of them:

• Schemes to provide air cargo support in order to promote agricultural exports from India.
• To ensure companies/communities involved in agriculture are benefited effectively from digital technology, 2000 Crores or $ 306.29 Million has been alloted to transform PACS or Primary Agricultural Credit Society into a digital outfit.
• AGRI-UDAAN programme has been launched to advance entrepreneurship and innovation in agriculture.
• PMKSY or Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana has been launched with a good investment of $ 7.7 Billion or 50,000 Crores.
• Urea subsidy to farmers have been increased and a budget of 6.95 Billion or 45,000 Crores has been set up exclusively for this.
• The Government has also promised to raise the income of a farmer from Rs. 96,703 (USD 1,505) in 2015-16 to 219,724 (USD 3,420) by the years 2022-23.

Why AgriTech and its future?

Agri-tech is a sector that has a promising potential, as the sustainable infectication of agriculture systems offers synergistic opportunities for collective growth of capital investment and agriculture. Since Agri-tech is away from western-influenced chemical heavy methods that are widely adopted today. Agritech startups have a strong focus in solving real problems than perceived problems unlike other startups today, which is enough to loop in quantitative investment.

This ride of innovation and implementation will distract the ongoing focus on agricultural debates to problems faced by small scale farmers further reducing their dependence on Government initiatives. Moving away from one of the social ambitions of Agritech startups towards technological benefits, AgriTech startups are also advancing technology in the field of market linkages like B2B and B2C marketplaces, retail and digital agronomy platforms.

These startups are at present capable to address intrinsic challenges of Indian agriculture happening from the starting and are now able to offer right techniques, information, and efficiencies to small-scale farmers exclusively for pre-harvest operations and post-harvest use cases.

HindRise Agendas on Agri-tech

Our analysts team at HindRise are able to draw a superlative conclusion that demand-side drivers like rising income levels, population growth, surging consumption and exports, favour the expansion of Indian agriculture. More, policy support from the Government like increasing crop insurance support, increasing MSPs, launch of various plans to facilitate farmers, initiatives to boost easy credit to farmers also contributes to agricultural growth in India. Here are some of the extra initiatives, HindRise is planning to implement with the promising support of its team and investors:

• Finding the Cash-Flow for selected few Agri-Tech startups:

  The first step to any stand-out implementation of any AgriTech startups is to find the right cash flow. Many Agri-tech startups today are struggling to divert attention of investors towards their potential Agri-tech models which often leads to a waste of innovation and talent both. Through HindRise Agri-tech model, our team will shortlist potential startups that can deliver both results and technological benefits to the sector, and will further declare funding based on the results.

• Promoting AgriTech Startups and Entrepreneurs through our Rural Entrepreneurship model:

  Apart from funding, it is necessary to promote the Entrepreneurship wave. Through HindRise Rural Entrepreneurship plans, like training right candidates, our team will shortlist assuring candidates who can certainly improve efficiency and incomes in agriculture in variety of ways. Irrespective of scale or commercial success associated with Agri-tech, there are bunch of entrepreneurs who have not stopped trying, and all they need is a slight direction and strong support, which HindRise aims to provide.

• Facilitating funds for providing financial support to farming families:

  Creating and implementing finance strategies and instruments to loop in private sector, further increasing access to suitable financial services to farmers, small and medium agricultural enterprises as a way to boost agricultural productivity and income. Apart from this, HindRise plans to arrange and direct funds to families of farmers who are suffering from incredible loan pressure.

• Spreading awareness through Marketing:

  Facilitating the integration or consolidation of marketing and production entities in agriculture to accomplish economies of scale and create a strong foothold in markets.

• Addressing consistent Fallouts of Agriculture in India and promoting technological advancements in various corporates:

  Wind of change always starts from youth, and connecting them with opportunities that can make a sharp bend in Indian economy is always productive. HindRise plans to arrange series of workshops in corporates, educational establishments and schools and bring attentions towards the growing Agri-tech startups.

Encouraging CSR activities through events creating a long-lasting impact