Time farmers harvested the power of tech

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Context

• Be it education, healthcare, or the roadside vendor, the biggest takeaway for every sector — organised and unorganised — from the Covid-19 pandemic is adapting to the new normal.
• And this ‘new normal’ is almost entirely technology driven and farming will also need to embrace new technologies.

Tech in agriculture so far

• Advances in machinery have expanded the scale, speed, and productivity of farm equipment, leading to more efficient cultivation of larger land parcels.
• Seed, irrigation, and fertilisers also have vastly improved, helping farmers increase yields.

However the farming sector, which contributes 16 per cent to the GDP and employs more than 45 per cent of the workforce, is nowhere near leveraging the benefits of technological innovations that are being offered by agritech start-ups.

Recent technologies and their benefits

Now, agriculture is in the early days of yet another revolution, at the heart of which lie data and connectivity.

• Artificial intelligence, analytics, connected sensors, and other emerging technologies could further increase yields, improve the efficiency of water and other inputs, and build sustainability and resilience across crop cultivation and animal husbandry.

How startups help farmers

• Connections
  • Through the use of artificial intelligence, machine learning, internet of things (IoT), etc., these start-ups are connecting farmers, small operators such as kiranashops, the neighbourhood mom-and-pop stores, the delivery start-ups and ultimately the consumer under one umbrella.
  • Through these start-ups, farmers are also able to directly connect to bigger players who buy quality produce in bulk.
• F2B model
  • The agritech start-ups have solved this problem by starting a unique farmer-to-business (F2B) model.
    • Example- Dehaati Beej Se Baazar Tak, a full-stack agri-service firm that engages through B2F (business-to-farmer) and F2B models. It uses data science, agriscience and analytics to nurture a ecosystem of farmers, micro-entrepreneurs and institutional buyers.
    • Ninjacart, which sources fresh produce from farms and supplies to retailers, restaurants, grocery and kiranastores, and small businesses and is operational in around a dozen cities. Thus it helps in reducing wastage by involving demand-driven harvest schedule.

Lost opportunity due to farm laws repeal

• It is estimated that there are about 500 agritech start-ups in India, operating at various levels of supply chains. Almost all of them would have benefited from the new farms laws which have now been repealed.

Other challenges

• India’s biggest challenge is to scale up farmer outreach.
• The Indian farmer is not as technologically advanced as his Western counterpart.
• Also, tech penetration in the rural landscape is not widespread enough.

Conclusion

Farmers, who form one of the oldest industries civilisation has known, must embrace a digital, connectivity-fuelled transformation in order to overcome increasing demand and benefit from the quality of their produce directly from the consumer.

The Hindu link

https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/time-farmers-harvested-the-power-of-tech/article38006441.ece

Question- How agri-starups can change the agriculture landscape both in terms of enhancing production and reducing wastage. Explain.