Industry Leaders Discuss Methods to Make Agriculture Profitable at the Agri Startup Conclave 2022

The ongoing Agri Startup Conclave 2022, inaugurated by PM Modi yesterday held five conferences throughout the day where prominent personalities from the agriculture sector discussed burning topics regarding the farmers and the industry.

During the ‘Startups Solving Problems of the Agricultural Value Chains’ conference, one of the lead speakers, Sachin Nandwana, Co-founder and Director of Big Haat said that raw agricultural materials do not give many benefits and that value addition is necessary to make agriculture profitable. Talking about Big Haat’s initiatives, he mentioned that they created Crop Doctor which farmers can use to get the solution for their damaged plants by just using a picture of the crop. The app will then assess the damage the crops have received and then provide the solution for it while also explaining the disease.

At the same conference, Ninjacart’s Co-Founder Vasudevan C. explained that farmers experience price risk, information asymmetry about demand, distribution inefficiency, and receive late payment. 

Meanwhile, retailers face problems such as higher costs, low quality and unhygienic produce, high price vitality, and the everyday hassle of going to the market.

He also added that the traditional supply chain is highly inefficient, unorganized, and has a high rate of food wastage. He went on to outline the solution that Ninjacart eliminates intermediaries by taking control of the supply chain using technology and analytics. He said this results in farmers getting better prices and consistent demand and on the other hand, retailers receive fresh produce at competitive prices that are delivered to their doorstep.

At the ‘Building of an Eco-system for Farming as a Service’ conference, Prem Kumar, Co-founder of Marut Drones talked about drone technology as a tool for doubling farmers’ income.

He addressed the problem of manual pesticide spraying causing severe health issues to farmers and claimed that the time-consuming task can be done quickly, efficiently, and safely through the use of drones.

Also present at this conference were Dr. Himanshu Pathak, Secretary DARE & DG-ICAR, and Agam Khare, Founder & CEO of Absolute.