What is Agriculture 4.0 and why does India need to transition to it?
The way the agricultural sector is currently set up in the country is a surefire way to serious bottlenecks in production to meet the growing food demands of the global population. Climate change, shortage of resources, poor management and monitoring of farm inputs, allocation, and access inequalities are all issues that most Indian farmers are all too familiar with. But there is a solution that comes with the internet age; migrating the existing agricultural framework to Agriculture 4.0.?
Agriculture 4.0 throws out all the dated farming practices that run on guesswork and swaps them with tech-powered intelligence deployed at the farm level. The use of IoT systems and data-driven farm management is the way forward and the agtech industry is filling that gap. With technology bringing precision to farming, Indian farmers are able to achieve predictable incomes. Despite the pandemic’s effect on most businesses, this predictability resulted in the agtech sector witnessing a positive growth in the past year. There has been consistent backing for the sector from venture capitalists and private equity funds worldwide. The sector, on the whole, is also receiving funds from domestic and international investors who are on the lookout for agtech startups that are solving the inherent challenges of the existing agriculture system with smart farming.?
An Ernst & Young study places the potential of the Indian agtech market at $24 billion by 2025, while Bain & Company projects this figure to be $35 billion. With these promising figures and the increasing adoption rate of precision farming, the government has also shown interest to bolster the sector. In the 2022 budget announcement, it’s been stated that the government will be setting up a dedicated fund for agtech startups with a blended pool of capital through NABARD.?
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With plenty of investments pouring in and government support, 2022 is starting out as an important year for the agtech ecosystem in the country. With India being home to over 1000+ agtech startups, the exponential interest seen in the sector in recent years is a good indication that our existing agricultural system is at the precipice of game-changing restructuring.?
Want to step into the future of farming? Technology is the answer to enabling this transformation.
Territory Manager @ IPL Biologicals Limited | MBA in Agribusiness
2 年Technological innovations have greatly shaped agriculture throughout time. From the creation of the plow to the GPS driven precision farming equipment technology is essential for agriculture
Honorary Scientist CSIR-Fourth Paradigm Institute, Bengaluru, India
2 年Good to know the developments. We need to keep on fine-tuning good agronomy alongwith all the digital tools make Agriculture 4.0 succeed. I wish you all the best.