New India: Agri-Tech India

A brief summary on new initiatives by Central Govt: GrainBank (Storage at farm-gate and Digitising each Grain bags): “New India- Agri-Tech India”

More than two third farmers in India are small and marginal, and good news is the government is very clear in its decision making process to bring them into a mainstream to feed the nation. Now small and marginal farmers keep their grain in a nearby GrainBank and directly sell to end buyers across the country through the mobile app (linked to CCRL/NeRL for eNWR), or visiting nearby?GrainBank?and access their account through Kiosks or calling customer care in local language and get payment directly credited into their bank account, but a model like?GrainBank?“A Must” exist at farm-gate to Digitise it produce and take care of the transaction settlement; quality, quantity, payment and logistics all at farm-gate level.

More clarity in quality parameter and standardisation will help to build adequate awareness among farmers and will reduce?GrainBank?bandwidth chocking on farmer handholding on quality than to develop better traction on?GrainBank?platform to connect thousands of buyers from across the country.

Replication of the GrainBank rapidly across geography and get the additional capacity built, which becomes easier now to get it funded for landlords to build more and more micro warehouses. Also buyers from deficit geography and far fetched locations, now can buy directly on the?GrainBank?platform and?logistics subsidy can actually help to broaden its market outreach where farmer can reach out across the country?and get the best price for themselves and so secured price discovery opportunity increases for small and marginal farmers even for?ONE BAG.

Micro warehouse focussed Infrastructure development will help scale quickly and remain asset light for a model like the?GrainBank.

Cluster based approach to help build capacity to set up more food processing units which will create incremental local demand for raw material to manufacture value added products and also help to increase and sustain the commodity price for better income realisation for?GrainBank?farmers at farm-gate.

Refinance support will boost it's NBFC and Banking partner’s interest level in engaging with small and marginal farmers using?GrainBank?digitally which decreases the cost of collateralised short term borrowing for small and marginal farmers (specially?GrainBank?platform service those segments) and increases the exposure level by Bank and NBFCs partners which will help the?GrainBank?to expand rapidly without any bottleneck of credit facility availability for small and marginal farmers. Due to better lending quality of eNWR based funding to the farmers, bank may shift from KCC to ePledge as it’s short term, transparent, collateralised and almost ZERO delinquency.

Over all it’s super time to revive the economy with clear focus on agriculture and related activity and the impact is potentially visible in short span of time.

By- Kishor Jha (Founder, ERGOS- The Digital GrainBank)