Farming Technology - How AgriTech Industry Is Solving Farmer's Pertinent Problem
In an interaction with SiliconIndia, Anand Chandra, Co-founder, Arya.ag (Agritech startup), explains why agritech businesses are infusing investments for the development of technologies for impeccable farming and related processes. Such disruptive technology propositions are also enabling mainstreaming of factors such as productions and yielding efficiency.The overall benefit to farmers is in form of enhanced livelihood while overcoming pertinent age-old problems of farming community households through appropriate use of technologies.
How Has Technology Been Infused Into The Recent Developments In The Food And Agriculture Industry?
If you look at India's map, we have 16 agroclimatic zones, which means, as a country we can produce anything and everything. But over the years, as family owned agricultural lands have further fragmented, it has been challenging to ensure good yields from smaller landholdings. This is where technology has helped. The adoption of digital technologies has accelerated the maximization of yields and ensured that the operative cost value for mechanization has reduced, thus making it much more inclusive than ever.
With the right tech, we are able to produce more variety and quantities than ever before. This past decade, we have seen a considerable change in the agricultural landscape we have seen the introduction of IoT devices, Drone and Satellite imagery, sensors to improve crop performance, GIS tools and data analytics software’s for farm and crop management, Machine learning and AI for quality assessment and intelligent demand supply matching through digital platforms with intuitive dashboards. Tech has enabled an agricultural ecosystem for climate smart agriculture which is pertinent for the current situation.
How Are Farmers In The Value Chain Benefitting Due To Agricultural InnoVations?
With the adoption of technologies, farmers have been able to monitor resources, especially the inputs which help to increase their farm productivity and maintain soil health. Farm Monitoring at the preharvest or fertilization stage can go a long way in reducing risk. Innovative solutions can enable farmers to plant, monitor, irrigate, fertilise or harvest their crops in a smarter way.
Managing the crops in a way that there is zero food loss with the help of scientific storage techniques is another space we have made head-way in. Thirdly, easy & instant access to loans for her cash flow needs has helped a previously side-lined farmer and ensured her financial inclusion. Also, with the availability of platforms like us, farmers are able to access better sale networks or remove the redundancy from their value chain to get better prices for the produce.
What Are Some Of The Ongoing Trends In The Agriculture Sector In India?
As I mentioned earlier, ongoing trends include advanced mechanization and remote sensing, which remains the number one trend. Another thing is the ever-increasing digitization of each sector in business. When we talk about digital technologies, we don't just talk about one type of digitization. Starting from sowing the seeds to the consumption of food, nowadays, the entire value chain and the process is digitized be it spaces, commodities or logistics! This has increased traceability in the agrivalue chain bringing transparency and profitability. Also, this availability of the entire data through a platform like ours (Arya.ag), gives farmers the freedom to choose when and where to sell crops and at what price.
How Is The Agritech Industry Contributing To The India's Rural Development?
The number one contribution is making the market more competitive, in the sense that there are more options avail-able for the farmers. When there is every other industry participating in the market with multiple level players, it automatically boils down to a price advantage for the end consumer. So for example, the mobile phone business has also seen this level of competitive participation in its market thereby, making more options available and giving a price advantage to its end consumer. In the same manner, as more and more agritech companies are finding their way into the market while increasing their competitiveness, it is ultimately helping farmers get a better price for their crops.
Thereby their options are increasing, the cost of resources is going down and digitization is helping farmers access financial products, sell their produce as well as increase their respective liquidity position without the intervention of the middlemen.The digitization of commerce enables assurances in quality, payment and delivery. The adoption of fintech at the grass-root levels takes care of farmers' financial needs, a need that was earlier missing. Also, the entire payment mechanism now being digitized with credit wallets is also aiding them to get cash flow in real-time. All of these factors at play are empowering farmers to be more resilient than ever.
What Future Do You Envision For The Agritech In Terms Of New Concepts, Innovations & Technologies?
Imagine a farmer waking up in the morning, checking his phone or a tablet, finding inputs on temperature, weather updates, crop health, soil fertility index, and a dashboard with other such useful data. This data will further help farmers use the right tools or make the right move to safeguard their productivity, thus the efforts are directed to-wards adopting preventive approaches rather than curative.
Instead of going on their vast farm fields and conducting farm inspections, they will be able to know what measures need to be taken with just a simple tap on their phones. Every industry follows a rule that technology is successful only when it is scalable and affordable. Our vision for this industry is that once this technology becomes scalable and affordable, the sector will become much more vibrant.
As a country, our core competency lies in agriculture, however, we have not been able to utilize that core competency at its full potential. The moment we start looking at farming as an industry, things will fall in place as there will be more competitiveness, more vibrancy, and more options available for farmers that will improve their livelihoods and make their business more sustainable.
How Has Technology Been Infused Into The Recent Developments In The Food And Agriculture Industry?
If you look at India's map, we have 16 agroclimatic zones, which means, as a country we can produce anything and everything. But over the years, as family owned agricultural lands have further fragmented, it has been challenging to ensure good yields from smaller landholdings. This is where technology has helped. The adoption of digital technologies has accelerated the maximization of yields and ensured that the operative cost value for mechanization has reduced, thus making it much more inclusive than ever.
With the right tech, we are able to produce more variety and quantities than ever before. This past decade, we have seen a considerable change in the agricultural landscape we have seen the introduction of IoT devices, Drone and Satellite imagery, sensors to improve crop performance, GIS tools and data analytics software’s for farm and crop management, Machine learning and AI for quality assessment and intelligent demand supply matching through digital platforms with intuitive dashboards. Tech has enabled an agricultural ecosystem for climate smart agriculture which is pertinent for the current situation.
How Are Farmers In The Value Chain Benefitting Due To Agricultural InnoVations?
With the adoption of technologies, farmers have been able to monitor resources, especially the inputs which help to increase their farm productivity and maintain soil health. Farm Monitoring at the preharvest or fertilization stage can go a long way in reducing risk. Innovative solutions can enable farmers to plant, monitor, irrigate, fertilise or harvest their crops in a smarter way.
Managing the crops in a way that there is zero food loss with the help of scientific storage techniques is another space we have made head-way in. Thirdly, easy & instant access to loans for her cash flow needs has helped a previously side-lined farmer and ensured her financial inclusion. Also, with the availability of platforms like us, farmers are able to access better sale networks or remove the redundancy from their value chain to get better prices for the produce.
What Are Some Of The Ongoing Trends In The Agriculture Sector In India?
As I mentioned earlier, ongoing trends include advanced mechanization and remote sensing, which remains the number one trend. Another thing is the ever-increasing digitization of each sector in business. When we talk about digital technologies, we don't just talk about one type of digitization. Starting from sowing the seeds to the consumption of food, nowadays, the entire value chain and the process is digitized be it spaces, commodities or logistics! This has increased traceability in the agrivalue chain bringing transparency and profitability. Also, this availability of the entire data through a platform like ours (Arya.ag), gives farmers the freedom to choose when and where to sell crops and at what price.
How Is The Agritech Industry Contributing To The India's Rural Development?
The number one contribution is making the market more competitive, in the sense that there are more options avail-able for the farmers. When there is every other industry participating in the market with multiple level players, it automatically boils down to a price advantage for the end consumer. So for example, the mobile phone business has also seen this level of competitive participation in its market thereby, making more options available and giving a price advantage to its end consumer. In the same manner, as more and more agritech companies are finding their way into the market while increasing their competitiveness, it is ultimately helping farmers get a better price for their crops.
Thereby their options are increasing, the cost of resources is going down and digitization is helping farmers access financial products, sell their produce as well as increase their respective liquidity position without the intervention of the middlemen.The digitization of commerce enables assurances in quality, payment and delivery. The adoption of fintech at the grass-root levels takes care of farmers' financial needs, a need that was earlier missing. Also, the entire payment mechanism now being digitized with credit wallets is also aiding them to get cash flow in real-time. All of these factors at play are empowering farmers to be more resilient than ever.
The number one contribution is making the market more competitive, in the sense that there are more options available for the farmers
What Future Do You Envision For The Agritech In Terms Of New Concepts, Innovations & Technologies?
Imagine a farmer waking up in the morning, checking his phone or a tablet, finding inputs on temperature, weather updates, crop health, soil fertility index, and a dashboard with other such useful data. This data will further help farmers use the right tools or make the right move to safeguard their productivity, thus the efforts are directed to-wards adopting preventive approaches rather than curative.
Instead of going on their vast farm fields and conducting farm inspections, they will be able to know what measures need to be taken with just a simple tap on their phones. Every industry follows a rule that technology is successful only when it is scalable and affordable. Our vision for this industry is that once this technology becomes scalable and affordable, the sector will become much more vibrant.
As a country, our core competency lies in agriculture, however, we have not been able to utilize that core competency at its full potential. The moment we start looking at farming as an industry, things will fall in place as there will be more competitiveness, more vibrancy, and more options available for farmers that will improve their livelihoods and make their business more sustainable.
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