Tag: Unnati

Business

Agritech Industry Expectation from Union Financial Budget 2022-23

Jan 29, 2022 by Praveen 0 Comments #AgNext Technologies, #Agritech Industry, #Amit Sinha, #Aquaconnect, #Rajamanohar Somasundaram, #Taranjeet Singh Bhamra, #Union Financial Budget 2022-23, #Unnati

Agnext

Mr Taranjeet Singh Bhamra, CEO & Founder, AgNext Technologies:

“2021 was a good year for the agritech sector, which flourished with strong investments and greater adoption of technologies in the market. To support this growth momentum, acute focus on the development of the burgeoning agritech ecosystem is pivotal. We hope that the upcoming budget will prioritize R&D incentivization in agriculture, along with the supportive impetus to allow agritech businesses, particularly start-ups, to scale domestically at a greater pace.

The emerging agritech ecosystem also requires a focus on infrastructure development and governance frameworks to spur more innovation in the sector. Fiscal considerations can be beneficial to facilitate the growth of the Indian agritech sector in 2022.”

AQWA CONNECT

Mr. Rajamanohar Somasundaram, Founder & CEO, Aquaconnect:

“The PMMSY has shown some great results since its implementation. To accelerate the Blue Revolution 2.0, we expect a greater push to promote digital solutions across the value chain right from pre-production to post-harvest to bring predictability, efficiency, and traceability. Incentivizing farmers with better subsidies to adopt data-driven farming, farm monitoring & automation tools will eventually ease and accelerate the wider tech adoption and drive the transition of farmers towards modern farming systems with improved productivity.

To achieve the PMMSY targets, the need of the hour is to drive the inclusion of formal finance and insurance in aquaculture. High insurance premiums demotivate the farmers from availing any risk mitigation for their crops, hence subsidizing insurance premiums will help fish and shrimp farmers to mitigate production risks and reduce production costs to a great extent. Further, increasing the fisheries KCC limit from the current range will help farmers meet their farming expenses entirely.”

Unnati

Mr Amit Sinha, Co-Founder, Unnati

 “The Agriculture sector has seen significant progress over the years, primarily owing to technological advancements, although this can be improved further. In the upcoming 2022-2023 Union Budget, we expect the government to keep farmer upliftment, alongside rural growth and development as their topmost priority. An increase in investments of rural infrastructure, MSME development, digitization of the agri-ecosystem, and farmer productivity prioritization of Agritech to fund early-stage start-ups that are disrupting the agricultural economy also need to be focused on.

The Agritech industry will require support from the government in terms of tax benefits, eligibility criteria, etc., to boost the progress the sector is making and make agriculture a robust, tech-led sector. Some additional focus areas could be the allocation of funds for increased digitalization in the agricultural ecosystem, the promotion of collaboration between district governance and Agritech startups in order to bring innovative solutions to the farmers’ market, providing subsidies or cutbacks on taxes to farmers who opt for Agritech products. Easy access to capital, tax relaxation, and interest subvention to encourage FPO setups will allow the agritech industry to grow quickly and will help FPOs to gain traction in this new era.

Besides these, financial support to farmers, extensions to important government schemes like Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana, PM-Kisan Scheme, etc., are certain elements the government will need to turn their attention to. Overall, the sector has significant expectations from the government for this year’s Union Budget, and we hope that the concerns are addressed to make agriculture a technologically advanced sector and enhance farmers’ living standards.”

Business World

5 Agri-Tech companies helping in minimizing food wastage and bringing sustainability in supply chain

Nov 27, 2020 by Neel Achary 0 Comments #Agri-tech platforms, #Agriculture, #NinjaCart, #Origo Commodities, #SatSure, #Unnati

India is an agriculture-based country with almost 119 million farmers which accounts for more than half of its population. Agriculture being the primary source of income in the country, the farming community is one of the worst-hit due to the pandemic, with issues like severe disruptions in the trade finance, the farm produces- supply chain and closing down of the local mandis, markets, and transport facilities.

We have curated the list of 5 Agri-tech platforms that are helping the farmers to connect with the buyers, through retailers, e-commerce, and even by directly selling the products to consumers and keep the supply chain functional throughout the pandemic and now on the path of recovery.

  1. Origo Commodities– is India’s leading Agritech commodity financing platform, creating a positive impact on the planet and agri ecosystem. Origo aims to redefine traditional modes of procurement, handling, preserving, storing and financing farm produce, which had been largely ignored by the agri markets. Over a decade, Origo has expanded pan-India, with 500 warehouses operating across 12 states in the country. The primary focus of the business has been on creating financing and supply chain solutions. Origo has become the largest service provider to the government with its warehousing capability and network and is also spearheading a technological transformation in agri supply chain financing through its flagship agri-trade finance platform, TradeFi. Origo operates in 4 areas – Agri-tech, Climate, and sustainability, Tradefinance & Blockchain. It has been responsible for facilitating storage of over 23 million metric tonnes, reducing post-harvest losses by 5 percent, providing additional food security to over 1 million people. Origo has been helping Farmers in price discovery and market linkages.

  1. AgriBazaar– As a full-stack agritech player, AgriBazaar has replicated the physical mandi (marketplace) to an e-mandi aggregator model, through which once a farmer registers and uploads his produce, buyers can place orders for the purchase. Once the deal is complete, AgriBazaar facilitates the logistics of picking up the produce from the farmer’s doorsteps and delivering it to the buyers’ warehouse.  AgriBazaar also helps buyers — from MNCs to small-scale industries — with better price discovery, and sellers with more targeted marketing of their produce. It charges a transaction fee from buyers, while farmers can sell their produce at no additional cost.

  1. SatSure: SatSure has been at the forefront of bringing the best practices of satellite image processing, big data capabilities, and IT to agriculture. It also strives to create a positive impact on the lives of farmers by helping improve crop insurance, innovate on agri lending services, and improve market linkages by creating intervention and decision intelligence frameworks for agri value chain stakeholders. It has mobile app platforms for delivering information on supply statistics of crops and crop stressing in their region. This helps with the decisions on what to sow, when to irrigate or add fertilizers, or prepare for harvest. Large banks and insurance companies in India are also leveraging SatSure’s solutions.

  1. NinjaCart: NinjaCart is an Agri-marketing platform that helps farmers to sell their produce directly to retailers and restaurants. This helps both farmers and the consumers directly as the farmers can get better prices for their crops and there is a constant supply for the consumers as well. NinjaCart’s goal is to make a strong local farmer network and expand its operations. Ninjacart furthered its vision of, ‘Safe food for billion people’ with its first set of residue-free tomatoes, produced in partnership with agri-tech platform Kilofarms.

  1. Unnati: Unnati is a new-age fintech company offering farming lifecycle support to farmers across the country. Driven by data, the brand helps convert farmers into entrepreneurs by handholding them through every stage of the farming cycle with services such as working capital, purchasing the right seeds, nutrients and pesticides for crops, harvesting, and selling the crops. Unnati’s app gives access to agri finance, knowledge support, choice of inputs, tracking farm lifecycle, and access to buyers.