As agriculture is considered as a crux for India’s rural population for the fact that, it serves as a livelihood for more than 50 per cent of the population. With such a large workforce operational in this sector, yet, Indian agriculture sector is suffering from a variety of problems like the use of obsolete equipment, out of place infrastructure, and inaccessibility of farmers to the global markets resulting in limited profits on crop sales.
Apt infrastructure and supply chain management are the need of the time.
But in last few years some of the agritech start-ups in India focusing on these concerns like supply chain management and boosting the sector’s marketing infrastructure has been developed in India and has the potential to change the face of Indian agriculture and thereby raising farmers’ incomes.
In this blog post, we will meet 6 such Indian Agritech Start-ups which are accountable for bringing innovation in the agriculture sector.
With the government having picked digitisation as one of the core tenets of its term, the last four years have been marked by various digital and e-governance initiatives. One such move has been the setting up of the National Agriculture Market (eNAM), a pan-India electronic trading portal intended to create a unified national market for agricultural commodities which aims to eliminate middlemen and help farmers realise better prices for their produce.
But, despite such measures, there is a huge gap that exists between production, along with issues related to adequately producing and storing crops and procurement, meaning that farmers are still not able to get fair pricing for their produce.
AgroStar is India’s foremost AgTech start-up working on the mission of Helping Farmers Win by providing a complete range of agri solutions at the fingertips of farmers. Sitanshu Sheth,Co-Founder & Director transforming Agri-business and simplifying the lives of farmers .AgroStar’s tech platform provides a combination of agronomy advice coupled with service and agri input products that enable farmers to significantly improve their productivity and income.
To give the right solutions to Indian farmers, the company uses extensive amount of data, technology and agronomy knowledge. AgroStar currently operates in the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan and has over 5 Lakh farmers on its digital platform. Farmers in these states can avail agri solutions for their entire crop life-cycle with a simple “missed call” or through its Android app, which is amongst the highest rated farming focused apps in India.
Agzon agro with its tag line of Essence of farming serves as a global trusted partner providing solutions in agriculture and allied sector through innovation and leadership creating long- term value for growers and stakeholders. Founded in the year 2015 their mission is to provide quality Agri- input products to growers through timely and consistent supply through ground level support and guidance for sustainable growth and enhance profitability in agriculture.
The company provides reliable and cost effective solution for the nutrition requirement of plant through their speciality fertilizers, probiotic micronutrient solution ,Biostimulants, adjuvant and other plant growth regulators.
FarmERP founded by Sanjay Borkar & Santosh Shinde , is a smart agricultural platform that provides complete end-to-end integrated solution increasing the yield, efficiency, profitability, and complete traceability for all the agriculture stakeholders through their mission of digitizing agriculture and make them ready for 2050.
The company aims at technology intensive transformation of agriculture and agribusiness through strong R&D and professional expertise through innovative technology offerings – FarmERP and FarmGYAN. Smart Agriculture framework combines power of FarmERP with Big Data, Internet of Agricultural Things ( IoAT ), Sensors, Robotics, Geographic Information Systems, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) / Drones, Precision agriculture, satellite data, real-time cloud data sources and predictive analysis.
KrishiHub with their tagline Reimagining Indian Agri Ecosystem is a Bengaluru-based agritech startup. KrishiHub was founded by Bhoopendra Kumar and Jyotiska Khasnabish in 2016 and aims to be a platform that serves as a helper to farmers in improving their socio economic status. It provides an AI-powered, data-driven supply chain management platform to reduce wastage and enable farmers to fetch better prices, along with ensuring a daily doorstep delivery of fresh vegetables to its clients.
KrishiHub is building a technology driven agriecosystem for Indian farmers through an intelligent fresh produce supply chain and an advisory platform to reduce crop wastage from farm-to-fork increase farmers income and improve farm productivity.
Ninjacart is India’s largest fresh produce supply chain company that is solving one of the toughest problems in the world through technology by providing a marketing and delivery platform for agricultural produce.
NinjaCart connects farmers to end retailers such as grocery stores, supermarkets, and restaurants which buy fruits and vegetables. The startup also manages a logistics network, enabling the pickup and drop of produce.
Crofarm, the Gurugram-based company was founded by Varun Khurana and Prashant Jain in 2016with a mission of demand driven zero wastage and tech enabled supply chain for fresh in India. It is changing the way businesses procure their produce. This agritech startup provides a supply chain solution, by bringing farmers and businesses on a common platform, making it easier for businesses to procure and fetching higher prices for the farmers. Their aim is to make a supply chain that supports farmers and provides businesses with the freshest produce in the most efficient manner.
Agriculture has always been a critical industry to deal in many more startups are identifying challenges- weather analysis, financial inclusion, safe food, water usage, women empowerment etc. and are working in and out to address these challenges and convert them into sustainable businesses. So a large share of credit must be given to start-ups for bringing about a lot of freshness and innovation in the agriculture system. Measures like these are not only bringing about a radical change in the Indian economy but also taking a step forward in an attempt to make agriculture more farmer friendly.
References:
https://inc42.com/features/startup-watchlist-10-agritech-startups-to-look-out-for-in-2019/
