These Startups Hope to Make Money By Using Technology to Help Farmers Do So
Agriculture as a business - perhaps people would laugh at you, in India at least. There are problems of all sorts, filled up to the brim. Unreliable weather, uneven rainfall distribution, drought and flood; pest and disease, declining farm labour coupled with skyrocketing labour wages; inefficient market linkages due to intermediaries, to name a few. Hence, Indian agriculture has become less productive, inefficient, less remunerative and not an attractive profession for rural youth anymore.
While these are gigantic problems they also provide tremendous opportunities. Startups and investors are recognizing the potential opportunities in agriculture.
They are trying to solve the issues through technology in three major ways - increase productivity, increase net farm income and reduce farm produce wastage.
Precision farming, digital agriculture, smart farming and internet of things (IoT) are the buzzwords now in developed countries. How these concepts will be successfully delivered for Indian farmers to achieve the above objectives needs to be seen. Below is a list of startups engaged in agriculture (not exhaustive):
Farm management service providers
CropIn technologies CropIn is a Bangalore-based tech company with a mission to create efficient, productive and sustainable farms. They cater to agri-businesses and farmers in India and 30 other countries. CropIn collects data using their farm management software and help their clients to make informed decision on their daily farm operations.
AgroStar Headquartered in Pune, AgroStar operates in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan. They provide agronomy advice and input products to farmers to improve their productivity and income.
Unimart A well-known conglomerate in agriculture, UPL, has ventured into farm advisory, crop protection solutions, farm equipment services, market and post-harvesting services through Unimart.
FarmBee: what was started as a SMS-based farm advisory service by Reuters Market Light (RML) in 2007 has now transformed into an app-based company providing farm management services.
Destaglobal Backed by Boma Investments, Destaglobal is an e-commerce platform that connects ag input dealers with suppliers. They started in 2010 as a B2B company but now serve the farmers directly.
Farm machinery service providers
Gold farm Started in 2016, Gold farm is the “Uber” for booking farm machineries like tractors. They serve small and marginal farmers in Karnataka through their mobile app (Honey Bee) and call center.
Oxen Farm Solutions Oxen farm solutions targets to solve labour availability issues at farm level through farm mechanization. They are largely active in Central India.
Trringo (by Mahindra & Mahindra), EM3 and Mitra Agro Equipments are other farm machinery service providers.
Weather forecast services
IBM Research India Based in Bangalore IBM, the owner of The Weather Company, combines satellite, geo-spatial data with data analytics tools to forecast weather patterns and to predict pest incidence.
BKC WeatherSys Through their mobile app, Noida-based BKC WeatherSys provides weather forecast, crop advice and market related information.
Weather Risk Maangement Services WRMS has a multi-disciplinary team who want to empower farmers to overcome the agrarian crisis. They offer a bouquet of services including weather forecast and insurance services.
Agri supply chain and logistic companies
There are many players who are offering cold storage and supply chain management services to bring food closer to fork, efficiently and reducing waste. AgricxLabs, EarthFood, EcoZen, Gobasco, Khethinext, Ninjacart, Taaza and Tessol are some of the players in this space.
Who are backing up these startups?
Accel Partners, Ankur Capital, Aspada Investments, Beenext, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, BSP Funds, Chiratae Ventures, Future Venture Capital (FVCCL), IDFC, IDG Venture, Infuse Ventures, Intellecap, IvyCap Ventures, Kshatriya Ventures, Omnivore (AgFunder), Qualcomm Ventures, Rabo Equity Advisors, SAIF Partners, Unitus Seed Fund, Villgro Innovations Foundation and Waaree.
Hope these companies would offer interesting jobs to agricultural graduates especially agronomists, crop protection experts, soil scientists, economists, and agricultural engineers.
[This article first appeared in SmartIndianAgriculture on 25th Feb. 2019]
Head of Supply Chain at Delta Agrigenetics Pvt Ltd
5 年I don’t agree some points what mentioned in very beginning of this post. 1.Indian agriculture is inefficient No not at all you can count no.of progressive farmers in each mandal level and using tech and producing high yields. Only thing is produce directly should reach from farmer to consumer.No mediator system. If you remove this system definitely farmer will get benefit. 2.Rural youth not liking farming. Now a days IT guys attracting farming by taking land and doing farming in their weekends. Most of the guys are from rural area. Hope startup’s May helpful to farmers .
Resilience Unlocked: Maximise Excellence & Thrive | Sustainability Coach for Global Executives | Career Consultant | Coach Mentor | PCC
5 年Hi Gajendra, Fantastic article!? I am amazed there is such a high potential in agriculture and significant investors and technology players wanting to get onto it.? Well, I must say that they are aware that if they get into it soon, they are going to reap the harvest and likely having the last laugh.? Thank you very much for sharing.
Working as Freelance Advisor , Financial Inclusion and, Literacy Field , Ex-DGM (FI), IDBI Bank
5 年Great compilation. There must be a planned efforts from Government end to promote usage of user friendly technologies in agriculture. We used to speak on this aspect during our address to them on financial literacy.