AgriTech – An Investor’s Perspective
If
the opportunity is viable, the size of the opportunity is a key factor as well
as the demand. It is a very justifiable sector, given that food is the last
thing one cuts out even when the economy goes down.
Technology
will help lower costs for farmers. Thus, what startups have to do is build the
cost value proposition for the farmer. And viability can come from the entire
ecosystem on the supply chain, who can make business models viable.
For
encouraging more funds to flow into the sector, the government should get
incentives to funds who invest in agriculture, its sub-sectors, and in remote
areas or village locality. For this general or traditional education and
awareness at the grassroots level is missing and the central and state government
has to play a huge role in policy making and implementation in way of
incentives and idea of opportunities available – be it credit or
technologies.
For
startups looking to enter the sector, the top opportunities lay in capturing
real-time data, image analytics, and technology for soil scanning. With
satellite imagery, entrepreneur can tell at sowing stage, what is going to be
the potential yield. So, once it reaches a point where demand supply is
matching, the government can issue an advisory. These measures would help
farmers to avoid excess sowing, manage supply so that prices don’t crash.
Over
the last decade, the sector is being streamed with the stream of educated
youth, fired by the ideas, passion and innovations to launch newer kinds of
technology and business models to lift the face of agriculture from primitive
to hi-tech one. Startups are providing missing links in the agri value chain
and delivering efficient products, technologies and services to the farmers on
one hand and the consumers on the other hand, From ICT apps to farm automation
and from weather forecasting to drone use and from inputs retailing and
equipment renting to online vegetable marketing, and from smart poultry and
dairy ventures to smart agriculture and from protected cultivation to
innovative food processing and packaging, its proliferation of all innovations
and technology driven powerful startups set to revolutionize the food and
agriculture sector. Various scientific and techno-aided initiatives are
required to develop in the field of Upstream (Input) Marketplace model through Matching Agri-input sellers to
farmers), Downstream (Output) ‘Farm-to-Fork’ supply chain model, for Matching farmers to businesses or retail
customers for fresh produce, processed food, more importance on Farming-as-a-service,
adding agri business with tourism, IoT/ Big
Data led innovation, Engineering led innovation, Miscellaneous like Innovation in agri products, dairy
farming. After all the public participation in funding will facilitate agri-enterprenuers for rapid growth
of agro-tourism.
The
Urbanisation of Indian Agri-Tech startups is just waiting to happen. The
turning point is around the corner.