IAIN: Tech Solutions to Farmers’ Woes - Part I

The plight of small and marginal farmers in eastern UP is much talked about. So is the absence of sustained measures to mitigate their sufferings. The India Agritech Incubation Network (IAIN) is the first initiative in the region that looks at creating sustainable impact in the lives and livelihoods of these farmers through science and tech innovations. In a three-part series, we explore how the IAIN model has grown from strength to strength in the process of creating an enabling ecosystem for startups which have farmers at the centre of their solutions.?

The eastern part of Uttar Pradesh is a land of abundance where poverty has struck deep roots. The soil is fertile; rainfall is sufficient; natural waterbodies are aplenty; and the region has vast groundwater resources potential. But, the farmer population continues to suffer serious deprivation.?

The reasons aren’t hard to find. The arable land is extremely fragmented with about 84% of the landholdings below 1 hectare. The farmers have virtually no knowledge of modern farming, which includes the use of high-quality seeds and fertilisers, administering appropriate doses of pesticide, and other crop management practices. For generations, they have stuck to the old ways that are unsustainable and damaging for the environment. Those in remote areas must make do with substandard seeds and fertilisers due to lack of options.??

There are other challenges as well such as lack of irrigation infrastructure. Though diesel pumps needed for drawing water are available on rent, there is a demand-supply mismatch leading to long queues. The rising cost of diesel is a matter of serious concern for farmers. Since power supply is erratic, electric pumps aren’t of much use. Buying a solar pump doesn’t merit consideration since it is too expensive for them. On top of these, there are stray cattle and wild animals raiding the fields and destroying the crops. As more women enter farming, manual operations have been taking a toll on their health and dissuading them from pursuing commercial agriculture.?

After battling such difficult circumstances and putting in back-breaking labour, the farmer has little to look forward to as the yields are poor. The dearth of decentralised cooling and storage solutions has led to wastage at the farmgate. Grading and sorting of the final produce have also suffered due to lack of technology. These factors have resulted in poor returns from agriculture. There is hardly any institutional support to address the gaps in knowledge, financing, farm mechanisation and market connect. In short, the agriculture value chain is broken.?

What the farmers in eastern UP desperately need are end-to-end solutions that cover the entire gamut of operations from land preparation to finding consumers of their produce. This would require innovations at every stage of the farm to fork journey.?

It’s precisely because of these challenges that in 2019 the India Agritech Incubation Network (IAIN) was set in motion in the region. Its vision was to create an enabling environment for startups which are striving to address the problems of the smallholder farmers through their products and services. A joint initiative of Social Alpha, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Tata Trusts, in partnership with Collectives for Integrated Livelihood Initiatives and Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, IAIN was driven by a revolutionary idea. For the first time in this part of the state, the smallholder farmers found themselves at the epicentre of a narrative that talked about modernisation of agriculture to improve productivity and enhance their incomes.?

IAIN is unique in other ways as well. Right from the start, it has had its ear to the ground. Its problem statement-centric approach entails frequent field visits and exhaustive consultations with multiple stakeholders who have an intimate understanding of the ground realities. These stakeholders are NGOs and CSRs, resource persons and advisors, farmer producer organisations, and knowledge institutions.?

To create maximum impact, IAIN shortlists problems based on scale and severity. It wants solutions that are closely aligned with its curated set of problem statements. The Social Alpha Quest for AgriTech Innovations – a search for ‘farmer-focused’ technologies that entered its third edition in 2022 with a new name Techtonic: Innovations in AgriTech -- is a step towards identifying and nurturing possibilities..??

Stay tuned for the second part. It focuses on the unique IAIN model.

Authors - Onkar Pandey, Rubby Pratap Singh, Pratik Ghosh?