Growing with Agritech: Application of new technologies poised to transform agri sector
The development and adoption of chopping-edge technologies is a sturdy enabler of speedy economic development. In the submit-Covid-19 pandemic era, this has turn out to be an even more pressing need across industries including agriculture.
As for every not too long ago disclosed marketplace indices, agriculture – the most important resource of livelihood for about 58% of our populace – together with allied sectors accounted for 17.eight% of gross value added in India (at latest charges) in FY2020-21. Considering that March 2020 even as the pandemic-induced lockdowns took a toll on market and solutions, agriculture growth of 3.1% assisted maintain consumer desire.
This growth in agribusiness is staying driven by rising desire, improvements in food items intake habits and the require to react to climate modify. According to the UN, by 2030, India will have the world’s largest populace, symbolizing 1/3 of Asia and 17% of the entire world. This implies a significant uptick in agricultural desire, with cash flow growth accelerating intake of meat, fruits and veggies, relative to cereals. This outlook calls for a commensurate shift in output.
Impediments to Indian Agritech
Weak agricultural practices and lack of knowledge of scientific farming strategies amongst our farmers have held efficiency under world benchmarks. Inspite of a robust electronic infrastructure comprising satellite imaging, soil overall health information, land information, and cropping patterns and frequency, the penetration of digitalisation is pretty minimal presently.
Another key problem is the restricted adoption of fiscal solutions like credit history and insurance coverage. A 2019 research by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)’s inside performing group disclosed that even with many authorities strategies to incorporate farmers in the banking method scarcely 40% experienced access to official credit history.
The lack of marketplace linkages is the upcoming huge element adversely affecting farmers’ cash flow. Right now, eighty five% of Indian farmers get charges 40% or decrease than the bare minimum assist cost (MSP), with no direct access to potential buyers outside the house existing mandis. In the meantime, even the amount of these kinds of markets has not been multiplied as projected.
Even the farm mechanisation in India is minimal, at 40-forty five% in comparison to 95% in the US and fifty seven% in China.
Then there is also the added problem of transforming environmental disorders. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), greenhouse gas emissions have been expanding at an alarming speed. The resultant rising temperatures have serious implications for ecosystems, affecting each and every part of food items production and high quality.
In addition to the earlier mentioned, new challenges are likely to also emerge in the areas of pest and condition administration, supply chain administration and uncooked material charges heading ahead. Consequently, equally businesses and the authorities require to function in direction of the enhancement of resilient supply chains.
Stimulate Adoption of Precision Technologies
Application of new technologies like synthetic intelligence (AI), device mastering (ML), internet of matters (IoT), huge knowledge, blockchain, device vision, drones, connect with centres, and so forth., are poised to completely transform the sector by enabling higher efficiency, remarkable high quality, traceability and actual-time visibility even while reducing the carbon footprint and growing profitability.
An increased concentration on price tag, high quality and reliability are critical motorists of the enhanced adoption of precision agricultural technologies. The huge volumes of knowledge generated by farms can be captured, processed and valorised working with analytics to offer you actual-time insights to cultivators to empower well timed and productive selection-producing, reducing production charges and strengthening yields.
For instance, the assortment of precise knowledge about soil, weather, pests, and so forth., working with IoT sensors or geospatial technologies and its analysis by precision farming remedies aid present well timed insights.
Concealed Prospective
According to a 2020 EY report, the overall addressable marketplace for food items processing and agritech amounts to USD24 billion by 2025. It estimates the opportunity of supply chain tech and output marketplace linkages at USD12 billion, fiscal solutions at USD4.1 billion, precision agriculture and farm administration at USD3.4 billion, high quality administration and traceability USD3 billion and marketplace linkages-farm inputs at USD1.5 billion.
Although the section has witnessed sturdy expense activity in the earlier few decades, the marketplace penetration is at a lowly 1%! Suitable expense, infrastructure, and innovation could aid India generate thousands and thousands of agri entrepreneurs, having rural prosperity to unimaginable levels.
In a nutshell, a huge variety of technologies will enable the changeover of Indian agriculture. Along the way, some bespoke technologies will also require to be developed particularly for area disorders, while technologies by now available for other industries could also be tailored.
In the same way, some of the new business-to-business (B2B) agritech remedies will also have business-to-consumer (B2C) utility.
In this article the part of India’s program developers will be pretty essential. As for every the internet host for program enhancement and edition command, GitHub, the world’s 2nd-most populous country has in excess of 5.eight million developers. This pool of outstanding gals and adult males can be correctly leveraged to generate agritech remedies not only for the nation but the entire world.
I would like to leave you with a wonderful story from the lifetime of the Father of Fashionable Indian Engineering, Sir MS Visvevaraya. During a stop by to the mighty Jog Falls in Karnataka’s Shivamogga district, while many others in his group marvelled at the attractiveness of the white streams of h2o furiously cascading down the gorge, the great soul exclaimed, “What a waste!” It was this foresight that at some point culminated in the a hundred and twenty MW Mahatma Gandhi Hydroelectric Job coming up at the website.
The Jog Falls of our human resource will require to be harnessed as correctly. And to do that the Indian information technologies-enabled solutions (ITeS) market will require to search over and above basically coding for the entire world to acquiring program as a support (SaaS).

Sandeep Sabharwal, CEO, Sohan Lal Commodity Management (SLCM) Group
(The author is CEO of New Delhi-headquartered Sohan Lal Commodity Management (SLCM) Group)