NITI Aayog

Author Name

Admin_niti

Choose Report Type

Publications

Publication Date

Thu, 04/06/2023 - 18:19

Report Upload

Download (3.51 MB)

vertical

कृषि और संबद्ध क्षेत्र

PDF Text

Building agritech ecosystem for the global south
APRIL 2023
GEARING UP TO SOLVE FOOD
SECURITY CHALLENGES Gearing up to Solve
Food Security
Challenges
Publishing Agency – UNCDF and Atal Innovation Mission,
NITI Aayog
Year of Publication- April 2023
Prepared by
UNCDF and Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog
Support from Rabo Foundation and Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation
Implemented by UNCDF and Atal Innovation Mission
Building agritech ecosystem
for the global south Message and Foreword
Shri Piyush Goyal
Hon'ble Union Cabinet Minister of Commerce
and Industry, Minister of Textiles and Minister of
Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution
Innovation remains key to India’s sustained growth across sectors and socio-economic
development of all sections of the society. Agriculture remains a crucial sector for the
economy and a pivotal means of livelihood for millions of smallholder farmers across India.
Several innovative agritech solutions in India are addressing these challenges and Atal
Innovation Misson has been working with them to create an enabling ecosystem for them to
scale. The Government of India (GoI) promotes ‘Made in India’ and ‘Digital India’ campaign to
foster a culture of innovation.
With similarities in agricultural landscape across many emerging markets, there is
tremendous opportunity to help successful Indian and other agritech solutions scale across
borders that beneﬁt smallholder farmers globally. In this regard, the Agritech Challenge by
UNCDF and AIM is a step towards creating an environment to enable exchange of ideas and
innovations across emerging markets.
The whitepaper is in right direction to build south-south collaboration where India plays an
anchoring role and drives innovation and exchange of ideas globally. I would like to
congratulate teams from Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog, and UNCDF for outlining the
steps to make India agritech leader.
White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 01
Message
Shri Suman Bery
Vice Chairperson, NITI Aayog
Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) under the NITI Aayog umbrella has done tremendous work in
building the start-up ecosystem in India and has ushered in the culture of innovation across
industries. AIM’s contribution to agritech start-ups across the country is commendable.
According to the data, approximately 80% of the farmers in Asia and Africa are smallholder
farmers with several challenges. They lack access to quality inputs, formal market and often
bear the risk of weather risks which usually wipe out their entire income. The supply chain
and related infrastructure is poor and broken, resulting in post-harvest loss of around 20-30%.
Due to India’s vast geographical diversities, reaching out to smallholder farmers is an
enormous challenge. These are intensiﬁed by climate change, and it requires the adoption of
scientiﬁc methods of production for farmers to remain resilient.
As many countries' governments have digitised their economy and installed digital building
infrastructure, it has spurred the growth of tech-enabled services in the agriculture sector.
Speciﬁcally in India, we have launched the ‘Digital India Mission’, bringing the internet to
rural areas. This has provided a unique opportunity for the agritech start-ups to connect with
the farmers and provide their services. As a result, farmers can now access quality inputs,
markets, and an efﬁcient supply chain. As a result, India can boast several successful agritech
start-ups in farm input supply, precision farming, ﬁnancial services, supply chain, and quality
control.
AIM, in partnership with the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) and
support from Rabo Foundation and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has ﬁlled a
signiﬁcant gap in cross-border collaboration among the agritech start-ups. The goal of global
food security and improving the ﬁnancial health of the farmer cannot be achieved by
working in silos but requires cooperation and mutual sharing of innovation and knowledge.
UNCDF and AIM have taken the right step in this direction, and we look forward to several
such success stories in the near future.
I would like to congratulate the team members of Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog, and
UNCDF for bringing out this white paper highlighting the challenges and opportunities
faced by Indian agritech start-ups and the role of the Government of India (GoI). It is great to
see that our agritech start-ups have taken the lead in cross-border collaboration, and I look
forward to witnessing more agritech start-ups follow this path in the coming future.
White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 02 Message and Foreword
White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 03
Message
White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 04
Shri B.V.R. Subrahmanyam
CEO, NITI Aayog
The Government of India has emphasized innovation by nurturing agritech Start-ups
through Atal Innovation Mission (AIM). These agritech start-ups are not only catering to the
farmers of India but have expanded their base to the other countries too. AIM has successfully
created an ecosystem for the continuous nurturing and growth of agritech start-ups
engaged in solving critical challenges related to different aspects of agriculture.
Agriculture in India is unique as it spans diverse agro-climatic zones, each with its challenges.
Agritech start-ups aim to solve these challenges through innovative solutions. NITI Aayog,
through AIM, has successfully shown the collaborations between incubators and innovators
to take startups across nations. Select start-ups have expanded their operations in other
similar geographies/countries with support from the start-up ecosystem. The partnership
has laid down a template to nurture start-ups for cross-border expansion and
collaboration.Cross-border collaboration will not only improve the lives of smallholders in
Asia and Africa but has the potential to achieve some of the SDGs related to poverty.
Cross-border collaborations can help in the transfer of technology or innovative solutions to
least-developed economies without a signiﬁcant time lag. It can result in increased
production to address food security challenges. India has the right innovation ecosystem and
a pool of successful agritech start-ups to lead the global South in terms of driving cross-
border collaborations.
I congratulate the Atal Innovation Mission in NITI Aayog, UNCDF, Rabo Foundation, and Bill
and Melinda Gates Foundation for the whitepaper on the importance of cross-border
collaboration of agritech and the steps required to make India lead the global South
collaboration efforts.
Dr Chintan Vasihnav
Mission Director, Atal Innovation Mission,
NITI Aayog
Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) is a key policy initiative of the Government of India (GoI), set up
under the NITI Aayog umbrella to promote the culture of innovation and entrepreneurship
across the Indian geography. AIM’s primary objective is to create and encourage the
entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem nationwide across schools, universities,
research institutions, MSMEs, and industry levels.
The agritech start-ups in emerging economies have successfully provided digital solutions to
several agricultural challenges we have faced in the past. Even though the governments
have supported the growth of agritech start-ups and helped them scale signiﬁcantly, not
much has been done on extensive collaborations between start-ups from different countries.
AIM, in partnership with UNCDF, is a step towards creating an environment where start-ups
from Asia and Africa can share ideas and generate signiﬁcant opportunities in their
respective countries. The Indian start-up sector also has the potential to play the role of a
knowledge hub and support market development in less-developed start-up economies
across the globe. AIM, an anchor of the south-south collaboration initiatives, works with
partner countries – Indonesia, Malaysia, Kenya, Uganda, Malawi, and Zambia. The
implementation modalities of the collaborations are cross-border engagement, knowledge
exchange, and investments. Three broad categories of challenges in the agriculture sector –
low productivity, poor risk resilience, and inefﬁcient supply chain were selected. Twenty-ﬁve
potential agritech start-ups solving critical challenges around production, supply chain, risk
and climate change were selected while implementing the project. Several rounds of
discussion with incubators in the partner countries were held to facilitate the
implementation modalities. The partner countries have shown interest in these start-ups
and are at various stages of cross-border engagement.
In India, 70% of the agriculture workforce are smallholder farmers. In other developing and
least developed economies, the situation is similar. They face similar challenges around
production, market access for their produce, and issues related to adverse weather
conditions. The conventional solutions for these challenges faced by the smallholder farmers
often have limited outreach among the large farmers. The improvement in digital
infrastructure, internet penetration in rural areas, and reduced cost of the device has, in a
way, revolutionized the agritech start-ups in their capability to build last-mile connectivity
with the farmers. Numerous solutions to solving critical challenges in the agriculture sector
have emerged in India providing services to farmers in diverse geographies. White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 05
Message
White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 06
The agritech start-ups work in market linkage, ﬁnancing, precision agriculture, farm inputs,
and supply chain techs. India’s agritech sector, valued at USD 24 billion, has a signiﬁcantly low
market penetration of 1%. It indicates the vast untapped market. Therefore, the agritech start-
ups have substantial growth opportunities for domestic and global expansion in similar
geographies.
Even though the agritech start-ups have made signiﬁcant progress, the market challenge
remains. These challenges are related to the supply side as well as the demand side. The high
cost of agriculture infrastructures like warehouses or digital infrastructure often limits the
growth of the start-ups. In contrast, a lack of digital literacy often results in poor adoption of
agritech solutions. The diverse geography of India makes the cost of client acquisition very
high. The availability of farm and farmer-level data set is a big challenge, which is essential for
any digital services. Drying of funding sources, lack of human resources, lack of farmer
connections, and competition amongst the start-ups have often held back the growth of the
start-ups. Improvement in technological solutions and devices coupled with the support of
the GoI, the agritech start-ups will create enabling environment for the expansion of the
agritech start-up sector in India. The white paper suggests a signiﬁcant role in solving
challenges faced by the start-ups and facilitating these start-ups at the national and
international levels as a partner.
This white paper prepared by experts from AIM, NITI Aayog, and UNCDF presents steps for
making India not only an Agritech innovation hub but also a global leader in sharing and
expanding these innovations to the least developed countries in Asia and Africa. The global
south-south collaboration initiatives will support high-impact agritech innovations to solve
food security, supply chain, and climate change issues. In addition, it will make agriculture
practices efﬁcient, resilient, and sustainable for smallholder farmers across LDCs and
developing economies.
Prof Ramesh Chand
Member, NITI Aayog
Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog is the Government of India’s (GoI) ﬂagship initiated
focused on promoting the spirit of entrepreneurship and innovations by facilitating and
promoting an entrepreneurial mindset. Together with UNCDF and supported by Rabobank
Foundations and BMG Foundation, AIM is involved in the south-south agritech challenge to
bring the culture of innovation to the least developed countries (LDCs) through sharing of
knowledge and collaborating on ﬁnding a solution for challenges speciﬁc to agriculture.
Smallholder farmers constitute about 80% of the agricultural workforce in developing and
least developed countries (LDCs) in Asia and Africa. Across the agriculture value chain, from
production to post-harvesting to logistics, numerous challenges result in lower productivity
and loss of food grain due to improper post-harvest practices. Some of the critical challenges
faced by agriculture globally are related to inadequacies in production, supply chain, weather
risk, and climate change. These challenges result in loss of income for the farmers and as a
result affect their ﬁnancial health. Given the diversity of geographies, connecting with all the
smallholder farmers using conventional extension methods is a humungous task. These
issues offer unique opportunities to the agritech start-ups to ﬁnd a solution to challenges
faced by smallholder farmers and bring efﬁciency across the value chain. Improvement in
mobile internet penetration and smartphones in rural areas allows agritech start-ups to
utilise digital media to increase their reach to many smallholder farmers. India's robust
agritech start-up ecosystem supports and nurtures numerous start-ups solving critical
agricultural challenges.
A collaboration across economies is required where the innovators, incubators, and investors
come together and share their innovations and knowledge. It will solve developmental
challenges and improve the farmers' ﬁnancial health. The global south-south innovation
challenge aims to act as a bridge in connecting markets within the global south. As a part of
the south-south collaborative effort, India is best placed to act as an anchor to this effort
considering its growing start-up sector and potential to engage in cross-border business
opportunities. The Indian start-up sector also has the potential to play the role of a knowledge
hub and support market development in less-developed start-up economies across the
globe.
I would like to congratulate AIM, UNCDF, Rabobank Foundation, and BMG Foundation for
supporting the publication of the white paper on making India an anchor for the global south
collaboration effort in agriculture start-ups. The white document successfully outlines the
challenges and opportunities of the Indian agritech start-up sector. It also highlights the role
of the Government of India (GoI) in making India an innovation leader in agritech start-ups. Message and Foreword
White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 07
Message
White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 08
Shri Manoj Ahuja
Secretary Agriculture, Government of India
The Government of India (GoI) set up Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) under the NITI Aayog
umbrella to promote the culture of innovation and entrepreneurship across India. AIM aims
to create and encourage the entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem across schools,
universities, research institutions, MSMEs, and industry levels natione-wide. A component of
this, the Innovation and Agri-entrepreneurship Development programme, has been
launched under Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana to promote innovation and agripreneurship by
providing ﬁnancial support and nurturing the incubation ecosystem. Recently the GoI has
decided to set up a dedicated fund for agritech start-ups. The fund will be used to ﬁnance
start-ups across the agriculture value chain. The activities for these start-ups will include
support for FPOs, machinery for farmers on a rental basis at the farm level, and technology,
including IT-based support. These efforts have created a robust agritech ecosystem in the
country.
The partnership of UNCDF and AIM to promote global south-south collaboration to promote
an exchange of knowledge and innovation to improve the ﬁnancial health of the farmers is a
novel idea. It will make farmers more resilient and make the agriculture value chain more
efﬁcient and sustainable. Such collaborations will also help to rally various economies at the
global level to mitigate the risk due to climate change.
As articulated in the white paper, India is well poised to play an anchoring role in this
collaborative effort. I would like to congratulate the Niti Aayog, AIM, and the UNCDF team on
their sincere attempt to highlight the challenges and opportunities faced by the agritech
start-ups and the role of the GoI in making India a global leader in the agritech space.

Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation
India’s innovation ecosystem has matured rapidly over the last decade. The creativity and
vigour of Indian entrepreneurs and researchers can play a critical role in solving some of the
toughest societal challenges, supported by an enabling environment for innovations to test,
pilot and scale.
The success of the Indian startup ecosystem, ably supported by the Atal Innovation Mission,
NITI Aayog, and some other countries in South-South (Asia and Africa), provides
opportunities to scale innovations across multiple countries. Moreover, many sectors and
their need for innovative solutions are common across many emerging markets and thus
create scope for deeper sharing of learning, ideas and practices.
We are proud of our partnership with AIM and UNCDF to enable a supportive ecosystem for
innovations that have the potential to deliver impact across several high-impact sectors such
as Agriculture, as well as facilitate south-south collaborations.
Message and Foreword
White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 09White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 10
Rabo Foundation, India
The agriculture sector is a lifeline in India and many other developing countries. It, directly
and indirectly, supports the livelihood of several smallholder farming households. Yet, it is
also a high-risk sector.
The smallholder farmers remain vulnerable to a host of unpredictable factors, ranging from
prices, policies, diseases, infrastructure, and information asymmetry to erratic weather and
climate change. Moreover, the recent Covid pandemic has further aggravated the
uncertainties for smallholder farmers.
The need to support innovative tech-based agritech and ﬁntech solutions is thus crucial to
help improve the lives of smallholder farmers. Rabo Foundation is pleased to partner with the
Agritech Challenge, which is aligned with the bank’s focus on innovation to help develop a
more self-reliant and resilient agriculture ecosystem that can address the pressing issue of
food security. This whitepaper is an effort in this direction to discuss some of the emerging
agritech trends and highlight the solutions.

Message
White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 10
Dr. Neelam Patel,
Sr. Adviser (Agriculture & Allied Sectors)
Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), under the aegis of NITI Aayog, has been at the forefront in
creating and nurturing agri-tech start-up ecosystem in India. Currently, AIM is supporting
thousands of start-ups working in diverse geographies and solving challenges faced by
smallholder farmers.
Agriculture employs more than one billion people across the globe, and has linkages with
various industries. More than 608 million smallholder farmers across the globe are working
on less than two hectares of land, producing around 35% of world’s food. These farmers are
critical agents for achieving the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target of reducing
poverty and hunger by 2030. The sustained growth of the agriculture sector is critical for
fuelling GDP, sustaining livelihoods and ensuring food self-sufﬁciency in many emerging
economies.
The agriculture sector faces multiple challenges of production, market linkages, supply
chain, climate change, weather risks, etc., which cause signiﬁcant loss to the smallholders.
Signiﬁcant support and investment are required to enhance the productivity of the
smallholders and achieve the SDGs. Agri-tech start-ups have the potential to come up with
innovative solutions to address these challenges. The emerging agri-tech sector in India has
a huge potential to unlock values in terms of expansion opportunities.
The current partnership between AIM, NITI Aayog, and UNCDF has successfully
demonstrated that cross-border collaboration and knowledge sharing can lead to the
introduction of new technology in new geography to solve critical challenges faced by the
agriculture sector. I hope such platforms are created for other sectors as well, enabling cross-
border collaborations.
I congratulate the teams of AIM, NITI Aayog, and UNCDF for successfully bringing out the
importance of cross-border collaboration among the agri-tech start-up ecosystem to
improve the conditions of smallholder farmers. I deeply appreciate the support from Rabo
Foundation and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Acknowledgements
The white paper is the result of our experience working with start-ups in
agritech sector while implementing the Agritech Challenge in
partnership with Atal Innovation Mission, India (AIM).
We would like to thank our advisors, Prof. Ramesh Chand, Member, NITI
Aayog, Dr Chintan Vaishnav, Mission Director, AIM, and Dr Neelam Patel,
Senior Advisor Agriculture, for sharing their valuable inputs in
structuring the White Paper. We would also like to thank Hemendra
Mathur, Venture Partner, Bharat Innovation Fund, and Arindom Datta,
Executive Director, Rabobank, and Marcella McClathey, Senior
Programme Ofﬁcer, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for sharing their
valuable industry experience, which helped develop the way forward
section of the white paper. In addition, we extend our ackowledge all
other advisors for their rigorous review of the White Paper to ensure that
it achieves its objective. Finally, we would like to thank Jaspreet Singh for
his continuous support to the team and guidance to the team.
We would like to thank Anurag Wasnik, Innovation Lead, AIM, NITI Aayog
and Anisha Bhasin, Young Professional, AIM, NITI Aayog Aayog for their
continuous support in ensuring the project's success. They played a
crucial role in coordinating the UNCDF, AIM team and the Ministry.
We would also like to mention the exceptional contribution of UNCDF
staff at its ofﬁces in Asia and Africa for collecting data and information
that enriched the white paper.
The white paper would not have been completed without the
contribution from our cohort partners. We would like to extend our
thanks to all our cohort partners for taking time from their busy
schedules to provide insights. Likewise, the case studies would not have
been complete without their valuable inputs.
A special mention is required for Rabo Foundation and Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation for their generous support for the project and its
implementation.
White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 12White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 11
List of Contributors
Prof. Ramesh Chand
Dr Chintan Vaishnav
Dr Neelam Patel
Hemendra Mathur
Arindom Datta
Marcella McClatchey
Member
Mission Director, AIM
Senior Advisor
Venture Partner
Executive Director
Program Ofﬁcer
NITI Aayog
AIM, NITI Aayog
NITI Aayog
Bharat Innovation Fund
Rabo Foundation
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
NameDesignationOrganisation
Jaspreet Singh
Piyush Kumar Prasoon
Priyank Tiwari
Rakhi Sahay
Global Lead, Financial Health
Senior Consultant
Innovation Consultant, Financial Health
Partnership Specialist, Financial Health
UNCDF Financial Health-i3
UNCDF Financial Health-i3
UNCDF Financial Health-i3
UNCDF Financial Health-i3
List of Authors
Anurag Wasnik
Anisha Bhasin
Prithvi Sai Penumadu
Innovation Lead
Young Professional
Innovation Lead
AIM, NITI Aayog
AIM, NITI Aayog
AIM, NITI Aayog
Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog
List of Advisor/Reviewers Rabo Foundation, India
AI
AIM
API
B2B
B2B2C
B2C
CIIE
CXO
EY
FAAS
FAO
FPO
GDP
ICRISAT
IoT
IT
JV
LDC
MANAGE
ML
NASSCOM
NBFC
NDA
NGO
PMFBY
PoC
SDG
UAV
UN
UNCDF
USD
VC
WEF
: Artiﬁcial Intelligence
: Atal Innovation Mission
: Application Programming Interface
: Business to Business
: Business to Business to Customer
: Business to Customer
: Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship
: Chief Executive Ofﬁcer
: Ernst and Young (Consultancy Firm)
: Farm-as-a-Service
: Food and Agriculture Organisation
: Farmer Producer Organisation
: Gross Domestic Product
: International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics
: Internet of Thing
: Information Technology
: Joint Venture
: Least Developed Countries
: National Centre for Management of Agricultural Extension at Hyderabad
: Machine Learning
: National Association of Software and Service Companies
: Non-Banking Finance Company
: Non-Disclosure Agreement
: Non-Government Organisation
: Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana
: Proof of Concept
: Sustainable Development Goal
: Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
: United Nation
: United Nation Capital Development Fund
: Currency of United States of America
: Venture Capital
: World Economic Forum White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 15White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 16
I. Introduction
Over the past decade, start-ups in developing and emerging economies have experienced
rapid growth and successfully provided digital solutions to address several developmental
challenges. However, while the governments have done a lot across markets, peer-to-peer
interactions, exchange, and collaboration between start-ups from different countries are yet
to be achieved at a large scale. A productive innovation environment is when all the
contributors and beneﬁciaries interact, involve, and share ideas to translate into sustainable
solutions opportunities. In an era of a digital revolution, it is vital to realize that operating in
silos is not advantageous, and the best way to reap the beneﬁts of scaling innovations is to
collaborate and share. It could be a signiﬁcant catalyst when the mature innovative markets
could share their experience with emerging start-up markets. Through technology, skills and
capacity transfer, this exchange can fast-track market development in emerging start-up
sectors, mainly in the least developed countries and address life challenges of under-served
segments in these economies. At the same time, it also opens doors for ideas and
technologies from least developed or developing markets to be tested in mature and large
markets.
Agritech challenge is focused on the agriculture sector as it is a critical sector for emerging
economies across Asia and Africa. Agriculture employs more than one billion people across
the globe. More than 50% of Medium, Small and Micro Enterprises (MSMEs) in emerging
economies are also engaged in agriculture. The majority of people employed in agriculture
are smallholders who own less than two hectares of land, constituting 82% of total agriculture
land holding. 49% of this farmland is in low-middle-income or low-income countries. In terms
of production, smallholders play an essential role in driving agriculture productivity. On
average, smallholders produce more than 50-60% of agriculture produce in lower-middle
1
and lower-income countries . The sustained growth of the agriculture sector is thus, critical
to fuel GDP, sustain livelihoods and ensure food self-sufﬁciency in many emerging
economies. The Agritech Challenge aims to act as a bridge in connecting markets within the
global south. Agritech Challenge's focus will be to drive cross-border partnerships between
innovators and incubators alike, to address development challenges and improve the
ﬁnancial health of individuals and communities. It will be achieved by creating opportunities
for business collaborations and knowledge sharing supported by sustainable investments. It
will drive south-south collaboration through the following three modalities:
Cross border
engagements
Supporting pilots in
new markets
through
market facilitation
Knowledge
Sharing
Create platform for
knowledge sharing
between start-ups
as well as incubators
Investments
Drive investments in
high potential start-
ups for scale up in
new markets
1
Sarah K. Lowder, Marco V. Sánchez, Raffaele Bertini, Which farms feed the world and has farmland become more concentrated?, World Development, Volume 142,
2021, 105455. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X2100067X?via%3Dihub accessed on 5th May 2022
Though the Agritech Challenge would have a multi-country presence, it will focus on India,
considering its growing start-up sector and its potential to engage in cross-border business
opportunities. The Indian start-up sector also has the potential to play the role of a knowledge
hub and support market development in less-developed start-up economies across the
globe.
To drive collaboration to and from India, United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF)
partnered and aligned agritech challenge with Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) activities. The
other partner countries are Indonesia and Malaysia from Asia, Kenya, Uganda, Malawi, and
Zambia from Africa. Under the three implementation modalities, Agritech Challenge
implemented the following activities speciﬁc to Indian start-ups:
Cross border
engagements
Partnered with innovation hubs under AIM to create a pipeline of high-potential innovations that can
be scaled in other countries. Agritech Challenge coordinated with AIM-supported Innovation hubs to
orient possible applicants on the challenge, support them in applications and mentor them during
the ﬁnal selection stages.
Knowledge
Exchange
It is essential that, along with innovators,
Innovation Hub Managers also gain a detailed
understanding of new high-potential markets.
Speciﬁc to India, a strong community of
Innovation Hub Managers was exposed to
business potential and possible partners in
new markets.
Investments
Investors to support innovations to scale up in
different markets; Partnerships with enablers
in host markets will back the business case to
invest in these start-ups.
Agritech Challenge had identiﬁed three broad categories of challenges in the agriculture
sector - low productivity, poor risk resilience and inefﬁcient supply chain. The selected
agritech start-ups offer solutions relevant to the following challenge statements:
Improving agriculture productivity to cater to increasing market demand and enhance
smallholders’ income
Building resilience against climate change and natural hazard-induced shocks
Improving supply chains efﬁciency and transparency White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 18White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 17
Two cohorts were established under the Agritech Challenge - the main cohort (Refer
Annexure I) had ten matured start-ups having signiﬁcant market presence and customer
base, and the AIM cohort (Refer Annexure II) comprised 15 partners at various stages of
maturity. The start-ups within the AIM cohort stage vary considerably from the Proof of
Concept (PoC) stage to a stage where they have just entered the market.
The objectives of the whitepaper are:
II. Signiﬁcance of
smallholder farmers
There are 540 million smallholder farms across the globe and are responsible for 30% of
2
global food production . The smallholder farmer manages 84% of the farms across the globe.
In the case of our partner countries, they form the backbone of the rural economy, but still,
many lack access to the formal market. As a result, the smallholder producers have
challenges accessing input, credit, market, and technology. Moreover, a lack of income
surplus makes them more vulnerable to natural calamities. A solution that breaks the barrier
between the smallholders and the market will ensure efﬁcient utilization of resources, make
them resilient and improve food security.
The United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) considers farmers one of
the change agents in achieving the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target of reducing
poverty and hunger by 2030. The picture below shows the linkage of smallholder farmers to 9
SDGs, broadly categorized as poverty, nutrition, social, and environmental goals. Therefore, to
achieve the SDGs, signiﬁcant support and investment are required to enhance the
productivity of the smallholders.
Figure 1 Showing the linkage of small producers with SDG
Small Producer agriculture
Poverty goalsNutrition goalsSocial goalsEnvironmental Goals
2
Sarah K. Lowder, Marco V. Sánchez, Raffaele Bertini, Which farms feed the world and has farmland become more concentrated? World Development, Volume 142,
2021,105455. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X2100067X?via%3Dihub accessed on 5th May 2022
Source: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-42148-9_9/ﬁgures/1
To highlight the role of technology in agriculture as evident from the work of the
cohort partners
Ways agritech start-ups are working on solutions that can improve the economic
condition of the smallholders.
Highlight actionable items for the government to facilitate cross-border partnerships,
and India becomes a torch bearer for the agritech start-up economy White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 19White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 20
Proﬁle of smallholder
farmers in Asia and Africa
Each partner country is diverse in terms of agro-climatic zones and crops grown. Despite
such diversity, the proﬁle of smallholder farmers in these countries is almost the same. The
table below describes the characteristics of a smallholder farmer in these countries
Table 1: Showing the proﬁle of a typical smallholder farmer
ParameterCharacteristic
Average land holding
Production level
Production system
Access to market
Access to ﬁnance
Diversiﬁcation
Fragmented landholding coupled with
limited farm size: <5hectare and minimum is 0.2 hectare
Sustenance of small market surplus
Traditional
Poor and often dependent on middlemen
Limited/No access to productive ﬁnancial services
It varies from country to country
With the increase in the internet users globally at 53%, smartphone users have increased
signiﬁcantly in all the participating countries. It offers a unique medium to engage with
them to provide agriculture-related services. Therefore, it is essential to develop different
levels of technological solutions to increase outreach and have a signiﬁcant impact on the
community.
Critical challenges for the
smallholder farmers
The smallholder farmers, who comprise 70% of the agriculture workforce, operate on less
than 5 acres of land and often face production and market risk challenges. Challenges related
to climate change and inclement weather risks cause signiﬁcant loss to the smallholders.
Nevertheless, the story of smallholders remains similar across the globe. The table below
summarizes the challenges faced by the smallholder producers and farmers.
2
Sarah K. Lowder, Marco V. Sánchez, Raffaele Bertini, Which farms feed the world and has farmland become more concentrated? World Development, Volume 142,
2021,105455. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X2100067X?via%3Dihub accessed on 5th May 2022
Table 2: Showing challenges faced by the small holders at different
levels of the value chain
PhasesValue chain level
Seed
Challenges
Lack of access to quality
seeds and reasonable
price; dependent on local
stores for seed quality
Outcome
Low productivity
FertilizerThe high price of fertilizer;
non-availability of fertilizer
Credit No credit; limited access
to credit from the formal
sources; often dependent
on input suppliers or
intermediaries for credit
Farm
Machinery
Traditional equipment
used for farm operations
PesticidesQuality pesticides or
insecticides are not
available in the local
market.
Farm input
KnowledgeUse traditional methods
of production. Not aware
of scientiﬁc production
method.
Pre-harvest
Disease and pest Not able to identify the
disease and pest or do not
know the solution to
overcome it
Disease and pest Not able to identify the
disease and pest or do not
know the solution to
overcome it
Crop selection Limited varietal knowledge,
no know-how about
climate-smart agriculture,
‘grow what everyone grows’,
Low productivity
High risk of crop loss
Low-quality produce White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 21White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 22
PRODUCTION
Agritech solutions that
help the farmers and
their associations and
industry bring efﬁciency
in the production of
agriculture produce. The
solution may include
advisory services and
insect pest management
to input supply
leveraging technology.
RISK AND
CLIMATE CHANGE
This category will include
solutions that help farmers
or value chain actors reduce
or mitigate their production
risks. The solution may
provide Agromet advisory
services, crop and livestock
insurance, solar-based
solutions, or incentivize
farmers to increase soil
carbon.
SUPPLY CHAIN
Supply chain includes
agritech service providers
who reduce post-harvest
loss by either providing cold
storage chains to increase
the product's shelf life or
using AI to aggregate
demand and provide the
best price to the producers.
III. AgriTech Landscape
in India
India's agritech sector opportunity, valued at USD 24 billion, has a signiﬁcantly low market
4
penetration of approximately 1% . The vast difference in the potential and actual value
realization indicates a massive opportunity for the many new agritech start-ups and business
expansion opportunities for the existing start-ups.
$204 MN
$2
4 BN
$17
0 BN
Total market opportunity In
terms of turnover
Addressable market opportunity
when adjusted for net revenue to
normalize across segemants
Current market size of agritech is -
1% of overall agritech market
potential
PhasesValue chain level ChallengesOutcome
HarvestUnscientiﬁc harvesting leads
to poor quality of produce
(Underripe or overripe
produce with low quality
and low shelf life)
Post-harvest loss Loss in transportation
and storage
Harvest
Access to market Sell their produce to the
local middlemen
Access to
agriculture
infrastructure
Limited facilities for storing
and primary processing
of their produce
Access to credit No access to credit to meet
their post-harvest
requirement. Often result
in distress in selling
ProcessingNo linkage with the
processors for assured
market
Post-harvest loss due to
poor supply chain
Distress selling
Low quality of output
Loss in produce (in the
case of fruits and vegetables)
Low-value capture
If we factor in the effect of climate change within these challenges, the problem for the
smallholders increases signiﬁcantly. For example, the recent heat wave in India in 2022
signiﬁcantly impacted wheat production in India. Since India's weather records, the heat
wave has been one of its kind in 122 years. The heat waves in March, when the wheat crop is
sensitive to heat, have resulted in losses for the farmers. The heatwaves shrivelled the wheat
3
grain by 20%, affecting the quantity and quality of wheat grain . Similar incidence of extreme
weather is increasing and poses a real threat to agriculture across the globe. It will require
new tools and technologies to reach these smallholders and support them at each
production level.
3
https://india.mongabay.com/2022/06/heatwave-takes-a-toll-on-north-indias-wheat-yield/ accessed on 10th June 2022
4
“Agritech – Towards Transforming Indian Agriculture”. Published by EY in August 2020
Turnover includes the value of inputs, gross income from Agri loans and insurance, and values of the produce of Indian agritech start-ups
Source: Inc42 Plus, EY White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 23White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 24
Figure 3: showing funding received by Indian agritech players in 2020Based on the global trend, in India, the value in agritech will be unlocked in the supply chain
and farm management. Recent disruption in the global agriculture supply chain due to the
Russia-Ukraine conﬂict also indicates that there will be more investment in the supply chain
segment. It offers a unique opportunity for agritech start-ups to unlock the business
potential in the supply chain segment. Most of our cohort partners are engaged in serving
precision agriculture and supply chain segment with their products and services.
Table 5: shows the cohort partners mapped to agritech segments
12
4
3.4
1.7
3
Market linkage
Financing
Precision Agriculture
From Inputs
Others
0246810 12
Market Potential in $Bn
Figure 4: showing funding received by global agritech start-ups in 2020
Agritech
segments
Number of
cohort partners
Market Linkage4
Cohort
partners
Fruitfal, Agrosonic, Satvik Agro,
Neeraventures
Financing2Gramcover, Farminﬁnity
Precision agriculture,
including climate-smart
agriculture
10Krishitantra, CropIn, Boomitra, Satsure,
WRMS, Skymet, Farmitopia, Chakras
Farm, AI-Genix,
Farm inputs1Agrivijay
Supply chain tech 7MLense, Ecozen, Butterpaper, Stellapps,
Carritus mobility, Transity, Butterpaper
Others2Coorgexpress, Knotebooknetwork
Source: UNCDF and AIM research
Business models adopted by select Agritech
and Agri-ﬁntech Solutions
The cohort partners used various business models to target end-users rather than relying on
just one model. The most popular business model for start-ups is B2B2C combined with B2B
and B2C. The use of models is based on the size of the end-users, business volume per user,
and ease of reaching the end-users. For example, Boomitra has adopted the B2B2C model for
the Indian market, while it is B2C in the South American markets where the farm size is in
thousand hectares. In addition, many cohort partners have adopted the “Phygital” model,
where they have both physical and digital presence in the market. For example, Agrivijay is a
digital marketplace for solar-based farm equipment. They have physical stores in their
operational areas and an App-based solution to connect with the farmers.
50
127
1,927
1,851
129
Market linkage
farm inputs
Precision agriculture and farm
management
Quality
management
& traceability
Supply chain tech
and output
market linakge
Financial services
7222413858527
Number of start-ups that received funding
Funding received (US$m)
Source: Inc42 Plus
Source: EY ParameterB2C
Agritech Farmer
B2B
Agritech Business
to end users
B2B2C
Agritech Business to
Intermediary to End Users
Flow
Start-up, farmer,
FPOs, Producer
groups, and
cooperatives
Start-up and business
ﬁrm Business ﬁrms
are ﬁnancial
institutions and
corporates
Stakeholders
• Reduce the cost of
customer acquisition
• Potential to scale
up fast
• No intermediary
• Niche market
Cost-effective
• Instant scale-up
Advantages
Start-up, intermediary
organization, and
farm Intermediary
organizations are
FPOs, Cooperatives,
NGOs, ﬁnancial
institutions, and
corporates
• Potential to scale up
• Higher adoption of the
solutions a high level
of trust between farmer
and the business
• The huge customer base
at a single touchpoint
• Dependent on the
digital literacy of the
farmers
• Training
• Signiﬁcant time and
effort in customer
acquisitions
• Very few businesses
are eager to spend
on R&D
• Limited market
• Businesses have more
control in terms of
technology
deployment
Dependencies
for roll-out and scale
• High cost of customer
acquisition
• Dependent on the
quality of the business
partner
• Investment in capacity
building
Agrivijay, AI-genix,
Satvik Agro, Chakras
Farm, Carritus mobility,
Krishitantra, MLense,
WRMS, Satsure,
Skymet, CropIn,
Stellapps, Knotebook
Networks, Transity,
Butterpaper
Cohort PartnersGramcover Boomitra,
Fruitfal, Ecozen,
Agrosonic, Farminﬁnity,
Cropmint, Coorgexpress,
Neeraventures,
Source: UNCDF and AIM Research
White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 25 White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 28
There has been a signiﬁcant increase in mobile internet coverage, and an estimate shows
5
that mobile internet services cover 94% of the population. The ﬁgure below provides the
global mobile internet connectivity trend from 2014-to 2020.
White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 7
Challenges for Agritech start-ups
More than 450 agritech start-ups have presented their POC and are in various stages of
growth. Most of the challenges are speciﬁc to their stages, while few challenges are akin to
the agritech market. Refer to table 7 for critical challenges faced by our cohort partners.
Agritech market-related issues
The Agritech companies depend on
agriculture infrastructure (cold storage
chain, warehouses, sorting and grading
machines) or tools like IoT devices, farm
machinery, high-resolution satellite
imageries, and IT infrastructure. However,
all these infrastructures are costly and
require substantial upfront investments.
Therefore, the absence of such
infrastructures prohibits the entry of the
Agritech companies in those geographies
or sub-sector.
Satsure works with several banks and
insurance companies where the banks
and insurance provide their services to the
farmers, and Satsure monitors those farms.
Satsure offers services for 22 different crops
that do not have canopy cover. However, to
provide a similar service for horticulture
crops, Satsure requires high-resolution
satellite imagery, which is very costly.
Therefore, it increases the cost for the end-
users (farmers) and limits the uptake of
such products. Subsequently, it affects the
adoption of Agritech solutions by the
farmers.
Similarly, the companies providing farm
management services depend on IoT
devices to gather farm-speciﬁc
information like soil moisture, soil
nutrients, and weather condition. It
increases the cost for the farmers who
wants to adopt these solutions and
therefore limits the adoption of Agritech
solutions.
Start-ups engaged in input supply
business through marketplace solutions
must have licenses to sell certain
chemicals. These licenses need annual
renewals and are a challenging task.
The high cost of infrastructure and devices is a
signiﬁcant barrier to scaling of agritech solutions and
subsequent adoption by the smallholders
a
Lack of digital literacy and cost of the device resulting
in low adoption of Agritech solutions
b
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
32%
2.35bn
36%
2.35bn
43%
3.15bn
45%
3.30bn
24%
1,80bn
19%
1.45bn
39%
2.95bn
46%
3.50bn
15%
1.10bn
42%
3.20bn
46%
3.50bn
12%
0.90bn
46%
3.50bn
46%
3.50bn
8%
0.65bn
49%
3.80bn
44%
3.45bn
7%
0.55bn
51%
4.00bn
43%
3.40bn
6%
0.45bn
As indicated in the ﬁgure above, 43% of the population globally falls under the category of
usage gap (area having adequate internet coverage, but the users are not using it for some
reasons) in the year 2020. Furthermore, the gender gap in mobile internet stands at 15%,
which becomes signiﬁcant for smallholders as there are signiﬁcant women engaged in
agriculture as silent contributors. In India, the internet penetration is nearly 47%, from just
6
about 4% in 2007 .
The primary reason for the high usage gap in the rural areas is that people are unaware of or
understand the mobile internet and its beneﬁt. The users also have a low level of literacy and
digital skills. Other reasons are the affordability of a smartphone or service fees and the high
usage gap. Concerns like safety and security also deter users from adopting digital
technology. In addition, the recent increase in digital fraud cases using mobile devices has
affected the trust in digital mode.
Figure 6: Showing evolution of global mobile internet connectivity, 2014-2020
Connected Usage Gap Coverage GapSource: GSMA
5
https://www.gsma.com/r/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/The-State-of-Mobile-Internet-Connectivity-Report-2021.pdf accessed on 14th May 2022
6
https://www.statista.com/statistics/792074/india-internet-penetration-rate/ accessed on 17th June 2022 White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 30White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 29
A report by McKinsey indicates that improved connectivity in agriculture globally can unlock
7
USD 500 billion in additional value to GDP by 2030 . Smart devices using mobile internet or
broadband are central to the delivery of Agritech solutions in rural areas. However, low mobile
internet usage and devices make adoption challenging for start-ups.
As we have seen earlier, the preferred business model for Agritech start-ups is the B2B2C
model. However, the task of reaching out to farmers is formidable and daunting the agritech
companies due to following reasons:
High cost of customer acquisition
c
Therefore, the high customer acquisition cost will exist for the agritech companies for 5-10
years.
The direct connection with the farmer is often the cheapest, but some farm-level issues do
not support this model, so start-ups must depend on the B2B2C model. The primary reasons
for the adoption of a high-cost model are:
Most start-ups are data-driven and require the latest data to improve their software and
effectively serve end-users. In the context of India, the largest repository of data is the
government. These data are related to land records, weather data, crop yield, and price. The
community paper published by World Economic Forum (WEF) on Artiﬁcial Intelligence for
Agriculture innovation indicates 15 critical Indian agriculture datasets . The paper refers to
McKinsey and the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM)
research indicating that unlocking these 15 critical datasets could unlock 85 billion
opportunities in Indian agriculture.
Inadequate farm and farmer level data set
d
7
https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/agriculture/our-insights/agricultures-connected-future-how-technology-can-yield-new-growth accessed on 14th May 2022
The fragmented landholding coupled with diverse geographies makes connecting the
smallholders with agritech companies a formidable challenge.
The majority of the agritech companies do not have farmer connections, and hence
connecting with them is a big challenge
Farmers do not trust new companies and are averse to doing any transaction
Lack of awareness about the quality of the produce among the farmers means
procuring from an individual farmer means investing in primary processing. Often the
start-ups lack the funds to establish such processing units.
Since the landholding is too small, resulting in a small marketable surplus. Aggregating
such produce from individual farmers will increase the cost pressure on the start-ups.
Individual farm-level data involves various regulatory, political, and social issues. With
the current trust deﬁcit with technology, it is almost impossible for the agritech
companies to get farm-level data directly in the initial stage. White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 32White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 31
Even though government ministries and agencies like NITI Aayog have taken commendable
steps to ensure access to data sets, start-ups often struggle to access data. The discussion
with the cohort partners highlighted the following issues related to the data set:
Table 6: Showing 15 critical datasets to unlock in Indian agriculture
Dataset
Agronomic details like soil-type and fertility, including nutrient availability
(macro, micro, secondary), moisture content etc. for each farm
Soil health
High cost of customer acquisition
Description
High resolution images to identify farm boundaries, crop distribution, yield etc.Satellite imagery
Real time statistics on variety-wise market price and arrivals data from
commodity trades
Real time data
on agriculture
markets
Data on actual yields for crop varieties per area harvestCrop yields
Production and consumption volumes for crop varieties by month and locationProduction &
consumption
data
Climate details including rainfall, precipitation, humidity, sunlight, temperature,
wind etc. at district level
Weather data
High resolution irrigated area mapping to identify areas under irrigation, moisture
levels in top soil, root zone etc.
Irrigation maps
Storage network details like crop varieties stored, maximum capacity, average
utilization and safety buffer
Storage
network details
Warehouse details including locations, facilities like cold storage, capacity
constraints, tariffs, operating and handling costs, ﬁxed costs
Warehouse
details
Proﬁle including standards for defects based on crop varieties & usage, shelf life,
trade constraints, purchase limits, timing of production
Commodity
proﬁle data
Digital land records registry that establishes collateral and has legal validity with
various departments (revenue, survey etc.)
Digital land
records registry
Annotated dataset of images of different crop varieties for Al-based grading,
diagnosis and defect identiﬁcation
Defect &
pest images
Agriculture market network by location, crop typeAgriculture
market network
Historical daily purchase prices for crops by location, market type, level
(e.g. farmer, middleman etc.)
Historical
purchase prices
for crops
Import and export volumes for crop varieties by month and locationImport, export
volume details
Source: Community paper on Artiﬁcial Intelligence for Agriculture Innovation published by WEF
The data availability often determines the selection of the area of operations and the growth
of the start-ups.
The available data set is not in a usable form, and hence it takes a lot of effort and
guestimate to arrive at a conclusion
Many times, the land record data needs veriﬁcation at the ground level, which adds to
the cost
Many states do not have digital land records available
Lack of law around sharing of data often deters government ofﬁcials from sharing the
data with a private entity
The data capture and storage mechanism varies from state to state
8
https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Artiﬁcial_Intelligence_for_Agriculture_Innovation_2021.pdf accessed on 18th May 2022 White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 34White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 33
Many agritech start-ups have successfully established themselves in other countries. In
addition, some of our main cohort partners are also in advance of cross-border expansion and
will initiate pilots in a few partner countries. The success factor for cross-border expansion
are as follows:
Challenges in cross-border expansion
e
PROVEN PRODUCT OR
SERVICES HAVING A
SOCIAL IMPACT
Partnership with
multilateral agencies
provides an opportunity
to pool local resources
and conduct pilots. It also
allows overcoming some
regulatory issues speciﬁc
to the country. For
example, WRMS
introduced its services in
Fiji in partnership with
UNCDF.
PARTNERSHIP WITH
LOCAL COMPANIES OR
MULTILATERAL
AGENCIES FOR EASY
ACCESS TO THE
MARKET:
ABILITY TO CUSTOMISE
THE SOLUTION TO MEET
THE LOCAL NEED:
The product or solutions
can be customised to
meet the local
requirements. Boomitra
customised its services in
India for smallholder
farmers, while its services
in Mexico cater to large
ranches.
The product or services
have an existing
customer base and have
created an impact on the
ground. It instils
conﬁdence in the
product or services. Few
of the main cohort
partners have a large
customer base with
proven solutions and
have an international
presence.
Therefore, the challenges for cross-border expansion are related to intrinsic and extrinsic
factors. Intrinsic factors are the success of the product or service in terms of adoption by
farmers. The extrinsic factor is the facilitation by an agency to establish in a new market. The
facilitation takes care of regulatory and market-level challenges. In the absence of facilitation
by an agency, the cost and time for entering a new market increases manifold. In addition,
the facilitation agency can help ﬁnd local partners, which is critical for success in new
markets. The agency can be a multilateral development institution, incubator, ﬁnancial
institution or the government.
Matured start-ups
a
I. LACK OF HUMAN QU ALITY
RESOURCES:
The matured start-ups are in a phase of
scaling up their operations. They require a
new skill set to manage the growth,
particularly at the CXO positions. The
founders realise they do not have the
necessary skill set to manage the large
operations or speciﬁc parts of the
operations like marketing. Often these
founders must wear different hats to
manage the start-ups. The unavailability
of required talent in the market often
delays their growth plan.
II. CONNECT/NETWORK WITH
GOVERNMENT DEP ARTMENTS AND
INSTITUTIONS:
The matured start-ups in their growth
stage require farmers’ or farm-related
data set or the support of state
agriculture universities or farmers’
associations. Establishing such a network
is challenging and takes considerable
time and effort. Moreover, it affects the
start-up’s growth plan.
Challenges speciﬁc to the growth phase White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 36White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 35
Initial stage start-ups
b
I. FUNDING OR GRANT SUP PORT
The initial stage start-ups often test their
concept or run pilots to prove the efﬁcacy
of their product and business models. So
it is when they require funding or grant
support of at least USD 15,000.
Unfortunately, the founders are unaware
of the source of such funding/grants or
cannot secure such support as they are at
a very initial stage. Therefore, many such
start-ups cannot move up the ladder for a
considerable period.
II. THE MARKET CONNECTS:
These start-ups often lack industry
connections, and farmers connect. No
one wants to take a risk with a start-up’s
untested product. It delays the adoption
of their solutions and, hence, the VCs'
investment. The incubation centre of
initial investors plays a crucial role in
helping start-ups navigate such
challenges.
III. COMPETITION:
The competition amongst the initial
stage start-ups has increased
tremendously. There exist several
solutions for the same set of problems.
More than 450 Agritech start-ups have
presented their POC and are in various
stages of growth. It means that the
chance of a start-up with a strong team
and proven concept to be successful is
higher and often gets greater market
acceptability.
IV. TEAM BUILDING:
Once the PoC is accepted and the pilot
has been successful, the founders of
initial stage start-ups face the daunting
task of building a team with marketing
and sales experience and domain
expertise. Therefore, the candidate
prefers a mature start-up over the initial
stage start-ups. In addition, the start-up
pays a higher salary to attract talents in
such an environment.
Table 7: Showing challenges faced by cohort partners
BoomitraMatured with a
global presence
Lack of digitization of land records;
customer acquisition; Difference between a
record and ground truth
Cohort partnerStageCritical challenge
Main Track
FruitfalMaturedPoor quality data related to demand of the
horticultural crops; Signiﬁcant amount of
training of the intermediary organization;
broken supply chain; lack of agriculture
infrastructure; Lack of CXO level staff
WRMSMatured with
a global presence
Lack of digitization of land records; Satellite
images are very costly; high gestation
period; lack of rural infrastructure
SatsureMatured with a
global presence
Lack of digitization of land records; Satellite
images very costly; Often, ﬁnancial
institutions are not eager to spend on the
costly satellite image
GramcoverMaturedScaling up their crop and livestock
insurance
KrishitantraMaturedScalability; lack of networking with
government; adoption challenge in the
Northern part of India
Crop inMatured with
a global presence
International facilitation; lack of CXO level
staff; cross-border expansion and scaling
up; funding
Ecozone solutions Matured with a
global presence
Not enough bandwidth to different
countries; government support critical to
selling product; lack of ﬁnancing options
for the end-users; affordability is a big
challenge in cross-border expansion.
StellapsMaturedInternet connectivity in the rural area;
scalability; lack of availability of data
Skymet WeatherMatured with
a global presence
Access to granular level data set with
government; lack of rural infrastructure;
lack of cadastral maps; Cross-border
expansion facilitation and capital White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 37White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 38
AgrivijayMatured with a
global presence
Grant support to test some of its products
and scale up the business; Business
network to expand the B2B business
AIM Cohort partners
FarmitopiaSeed stage with
product in the market
Grant support to test the product Network
support to grow the business
Chakras FarmSeed stage with
product in the market
Fund requirement: network support to
expand the business; lack of quality human
resource
MlenseSeed stage with product
tested and ready for launch
Managerial capability: massive demand for
the product but lack of capacity to meet
the demand, Initial fund requirement
Satvik AgroSeed stage with a
customer base
A proprietorship ﬁrm; Need support in
registering LLP; Fund to expand the
processing business
Carrus MobilityPOC stageFund to test the product; market connect
FarminﬁnityEarly-stage with product
in the market
Network and business partner support;
Fund to expand the business
AgrisonicSeed stage with a
global presence
Grant support to expand the India
operations; Investment to scale the
business; Support in tying up with business
ﬁrms
Ai-genixPOC stage; Few
products in the market
Fund requirement for testing the product;
network support and collaboration with
agriculture universities to test the product;
business network support
CoorgexpressEarly-stage with product
in the market
Fund requirement for establishing
experience centres; enrolling farmers;
scalability
NeeraventuresMatured with products
in the market
Lack of digital literacy; the language barrier
TransityEarly-stage with product
in the market
Customer acquisition; networking
challenge
Source: Own research
Opportunities
for Agritech start-ups
A large number of smallholdings1
The FAO data suggests that 84% of the world’s 570 million farms are smallholdings having
9
less than 2 hectares of land . It is humanely impossible to reach many such farmers and
provide access to the latest farm-related information to boost production or make farming
efﬁcient. Instead, these smallholder farmers across the globe depend on local input suppliers
or intermediaries for such information, which often is incorrect and has no scientiﬁc basis.
Furthermore, these smallholder farmers lack access to formal credit, insurance, and the
formal markets to quality inputs.
The Agritech start-ups, with their solutions, can create a disproportionate impact in the lives
of the smallholders by providing access to credit, insurance, inputs, and market linkage at
reduced cost with greater efﬁciency. Moreover, these start-ups have the potential to interact
and communicate with millions of farmers across diverse geographies. Hence, the number
of farmers and their challenges provide growth opportunities to Agri ﬁntech, digital
marketplace, and advisory services start-ups.
Impact of climate change2
There is no doubt that the climate is changing rapidly, which has no good news for the
agriculture sector. Weather patterns hurt productivity, so the situation required modern
scientiﬁc tools to tackle the volatile situation. The way crops have been grown needs to be
changed, and resilient methods must be adopted to mitigate climate risk.
With the advent of powerful AI and ML tools coupled with satellite imagery, weather
predictions have become increasingly accurate. Therefore, an advisory based on the weather
situation will help the farmers mitigate weather-related risks. Therefore, climate change
allows agritech companies to mitigate weather-related risks and advise on climate-resilient
agriculture practices.
Increased mobile internet and smartphone
penetration
3
The number of mobile internet users has increased dramatically across the globe. Only 6% of
10
the global population is in an area that does not have access to mobile internet . Similarly,
smartphone penetration has increased signiﬁcantly, though affordability remains an issue.
9
“Smallholders produce one-third of the world’s food, less than half of what many headlines claim”. https://ourworldindata.org/smallholder-food-production
accessed on 14th May 2022.
10
“The State of Mobile Internet Connectivity 2021”. https://www.gsma.com/r/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/The-State-of-Mobile-Internet-Connectivity-Report-2021.pdf
accessed on 14th May 2022. White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 39
There are more urban users than rural users and a similar divide across gender. The adoption
of mobile internet and smartphones is much higher among young people under 35 years of
age, a unique opportunity for agritech start-ups to digitally connect with smallholder farmers
through their unique and innovative solutions.
Consumer behaviour4
The consumer preference for clean, chemical-free, and sustainably sourced food has
increased with urbanization and income. The demand for organic food has increased among
health-conscious individuals ready to pay the premium. It has allowed the smallholder to
offer organic or chemical-free food at a higher price. As a result, the demand for fresh
vegetables, fruits, ﬁsh, and meat has increased signiﬁcantly. The increased demand has also
ﬂooded the market with products that claim to be clean, organic, or fresh but are regular
products with a different marketing strategy.
It offers a unique opportunity for agritech start-ups to solve issues related to producing clean
and chemical-free products, supply chain issues, and traceability. In addition, it will help
smallholders produce sustainably by adopting the best technology and assure consumers
that their products are clean, fresh, and sourced sustainably.
Increased support from the government and
incubators
5
The government is also keen on agritech at the implementation and policy levels. Multiple
government schemes, notably Aspire and AIM, promote agritech in India. Some of the critical
accelerators and incubators for the agritech sector in India are AGRI UDAAN, Centre for
Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE), a-IDEA (Association for innovation
development for Entrepreneurship in Agriculture), ICRISAT (International Crop Research
Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics), T-Hub, and Agri-Tech Start-up Accelerator CIE,
11
Hyderabad, MANAGE Agri-clinics and Agri-Business Centre Incubation centre .
12
Figure 5: Showing various state-speciﬁc agritech initiatives in India
Government launched
pilot project with an
Israeli company to
provide technical
knowhow to farmers
Government decided to
integrate FPO's
packhouses on eNAM
platform
Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation and Tata
Trusts to set up Indian
Agritech Incubation
Network at IIT-Kanpur in
collaboration with the
state government
PUNJABHARYANAUTTAR PRADESH
Launched agritech
scheme for digitally
tracking agriculture
management Project
Mahadevh: rainfall
recording and analysis
MAHARASHTRA
Partnered with IBM for
tomato price forecasting
using ALML technologies.
Set up an agritech fund of
us$2.5 Mn using Al in 10
districts from seven
states
Launched an agri open
data portal
Set up ICISAT, a UN
organization as nodal
agency for developing
climate-smart villages.
KARNATAKA TELANGANAMADHYA PRADESH
Transferring evolved
technologies and best
practices through ICT
tools
TAMIL NADU
Source: EY
11
“Agritech Startups: The Ray of Hope in Indian Agriculture”. Discussion Paper 10 published by MANAGE-Centre for Agricultural Extension Innovations, Reforms, and
Agripreneurship (CAEIRA)

12
“India's Agritech Market Landscape Report 2021” published by Inc4plus
White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 40 IV. Role of technology
Many agritech start-ups have taken advantage of increased internet penetration and digital
outreach in rural areas to build solutions to tackle these challenges. The table below shows
the role of technology in overcoming the identiﬁed challenges
Table 3: Showing Own research issues related to a typical value chain and possible
technology solution area
Supply chain
efﬁciency
A digital way of tracking the value
chain (Traceability, Remote Sensing,
Location Tracking)
Affordable quality check tools
(Sensors, IoT, Cloud-based to perform
multiple aspects of quality check -
optical/olfactory/density)
IssuesDetailsPossible Solution Areas
Value leakage from post-harvest loss
ranges from 20% to 50% in the
partner countries
It is primarily because of multiple
intermediaries, fragmented value
chain resulting in value leakage,
lower net price realisation for
farmers
Access to the
market
focuses on increasing the farmers’
access to the market to derive
higher value
Intermediaries control the market,
and hence the price
focuses on increasing the farmers’
access to the market to derive
higher value
Intermediaries control the market,
and hence the price
Farm inputsFarming as a service (SaaS) model
for high-cost implement access
Sensor-based, remote/proximity
sensing (moisture sensing) tools to
reduce water usage for agriculture.
Farmers lack access to high-quality
agricultural inputs, farm machinery
and other allied equipment, which
leads to low agricultural productivity
or low-quality crops
Agricultural Machinery has an
affordability issue for smallholder
farmers due to small landholdings
Mitigate risk and
climate change impact
Digital parametric and non-
parametric insurance product
Remote monitoring of weather and
crops
Advisory services to the farmers
Monitoring of carbon sequestering
and soil nutrient content remotely
Low uptake of crop and livestock
insurance; lack of awareness about
insurance products
Limited crops cover under insurance
Low adoption of climate-smart
agriculture like zero-tillage or natural
farming to manage climate risks
Agritech start-ups use various technology across the value chain to overcome smallholders'
identiﬁed challenges. The table below maps the cohort partners, their technology, and their
intervention in the value chain.
Table 3: Showing agritech start-ups using different technology to solve
real-world problems
InputAgrivijay, Fruitfal, Chakras
Farms, AI Genix
Value chain TechnologyAgritech start-ups
from our cohort
Digital platform-based Livestock and Farm
Management - centralizes, manages, and
optimizes the production activities
Digital App-Based Procurement Aggregation -
to reduce ﬁxed costs and focus on core kitchen
and customer service operations
Data-Driven Marketplace linkage Price Discovery
WRMS, Satsure, BoomitraApp(mobile) based platform for expert
agronomy advice
Remote and Proximity sensing solution for crop
monitoring During crop cycle.
Satellite data-based estimation of harvesting
time and yield.
Ecozone, Carrus Mobility,
Transity
Digitizing and optimizing the Production,
procurement & cold chain Management through
the IoT solution platform
Automatically adjust the irrigation volume based
on soil moisture, climatic conditions, last
irrigation date and volume to provide the most
optimal irrigation.
Drones/ UAV surveillance
Gramcover, FarminﬁnityDigital Finance in Agriculture
Farm
production
Standard package of practices
Alert Log & Management (pest infestation,
diseases)
Soil testing
Satellite and weather input-based advisory
Real-time Crop reports & insights
Geotag-based accountability, predictability
Adherence to Compliance & Certiﬁcation
Livestock and farm management software
CropIn Technology,
Farmitopia, Agrosonic,
Skymet, Krishitantra,
WRMS, Satsure, Skymet,
Stellaps
White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 41White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 42 V. CASE STUDY
Post-Harvest/
Processing
Satsure, Satvik Agro,
Ecozone, Crop In,
Farmitopia
Value chain TechnologyAgritech start-ups
from our cohort
Satellite-based yield estimation
Sensor, data-driven harvesting time
Mobile Quality Testing Devices
Proactive AI-driven
Shipping information management .
WRMS, Satsure,
Gramcover, Farminﬁnity,
CropIn, Stellaps, Agrivijay,
Satvik Agro
Digital Finance in Agriculture
Buyer-seller digital marketplaces
Digitally enabled value chain integration /
Market access (off-taker) integration
E-marketplaces / Input e-market place / place
Brand certiﬁcation and management
Pay-as-you-go agricultural machinery
Supply chainStellapp, Butterpaper,
Mlense
Blockchain-based supply chain management ,
Farm-to-fork traceability of commodities.
Precision shipping forecast / Demand forecast
Livestock and farm management software
Shipping information management
Quality/compliance certiﬁcations
Climate
change
Boomitra, WRMS, SatSure,
Skymet, CropIn
Greenhouse systems, Indoor/ outdoor farming,
aquaponics
Reclamation of degraded, saline, and alkaline
land
Climate-Smart Agriculture
Residue management
Waste Management/Water management
technology
Risk management
White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 43White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 44 WRMS leveraged its on-ground force of surveyors to provide real-time monitoring for farm-
speciﬁc advisory and claim assessment. WRMS helps farmers reduce and transfer their risk to
a third party to minimize their loss at various crop stages and reduce post-harvest monetary
loss.
Skymet is another start-up which started its journey by offering weather-based advisory
services for the news channel. Over the period, it built a vast repository of weather data for the
entire country. Using its data analytics, Artiﬁcial intelligence, and satellite data, it has built risk
models around various crops across the country. The insurance companies use it to offer
conventional and weather-based insurance products to farmers.
Satsure also offers satellite-based insurance services to the farmer.
White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 46White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 45
Case Study 1:
Mitigating weather risk and
incentivizing smallholders for climate positive
action through Agritech solution
One of the challenge categories for the entire program is “Risk and Climate Change”.
Agriculture in the partner countries is dependent on rain. In the case of India, the monsoon
plays an essential role in agriculture. Any change in weather pattern results in a drought or
ﬂood situation affecting crop production. Therefore, it is important to reduce the production
risk of the producers to the extent that losses are covered through the provision of insurance.
The scientiﬁc community has come up with many sustainable climate-smart techniques
that can help farmers reduce climate change's impact. However, it is also necessary for
farmers to adopt these techniques to be sustainable in the long run.
The agritech start-ups have adopted the following models to develop an innovative solution
to tackle the risk related to climate change and developed mechanisms to incentivize
farmers to adopt climate innovative agriculture practices.
Agritech solution working closely with insurance
companies to mitigate weather-related risks
through an innovative insurance product
A
Many agritech start-ups use satellite images to monitor crop growth on a given land. These
start-ups have leveraged the digitized land records and overlaid these details on satellite
images to track individual plots. Once this is accomplished, various customized services can
be offered to the smallholder farmers and insurance companies. It has solved a perennial
problem of insurance companies related to monitoring individual plots over a larger area.
These start-ups have a physical presence on the ground to validate the ground information
related to soil type and land boundaries.
WRMS is one such solution which offers innovative insurance products through their
SecuFarm application. The WRMS partners with FPOs and other agencies working closely
with the farmers to provide its services. It offers parametric and non-parametric insurance
and crop assurance product. WRMS offers farmers customized and timely alerts and
forecasts, farm alerts, crop status, soil management protocols, insect pest management
advisories and post-harvest assistance in gradation, packaging, storing, logistics, and getting
the best market price. Crop assurance was included in the SecuFarm intervention to
guarantee a minimum income level if the farmer adopts all the advisories. In this way, WRMS
transferred the risks that could not be minimized. Its in-house expertise in risk proﬁling,
agricultural sciences, & actuarial sciences and its signiﬁcant on-ground presence.
Agricultural scientists used historical & forecasted weather data to assess the crop risks due
to pests and disease events. The historical data was used by underwriters for risk-proﬁling,
designing crop-speciﬁc and offering the SecuFarm product to the farmers at lower costs.
Agritech Solutions provides advisory services to the
smallholder farmers as additional
B
Start-ups like WRMS, Satsure, CropIn and Skymet provide agromet advisory services to the
farmers. The farmers can access this advisory service through their mobile applications or
push notiﬁcations if they subscribe to their product. These advisory services can be generic or
customized based on the start-ups. Some of the standard advisory services offered by these
start-ups are as follows:
Weather forecast Crop-speciﬁc
agronomic advisories
Customized
alerts speciﬁc to crop
Insect pest
management advisories
Input speciﬁc
advisories
Price-related
advisories
Smart agriculture
practices
WRMS provides advisory services to farmers who subscribe to their Secufarm application.
The advisory includes intelligent agriculture practices to reduce the risk related to
production. Skymet offers advisory services through its application that can be downloaded
by the farmer using a smartphone. Satsure offers its advisory services bundled with its
insurance product. CropIn not only helps farmers identify insect pests and diseases but also
provides advisory services through its AI-based solution in partnership with ﬁnancial
institutions. White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 48White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 47
Agritech solution incentivizing farmers to adopt
climate-smart agriculture practices
C
Boomitra is a unique start-up that incentivizes farmers to adopt climate-smart agriculture
practices. Boomitra monitors the soil carbon content with satellite imagery. It has partnered
with carbon-sequestering agencies that certify the carbon sequestered and, thus, obtain
carbon credit. These carbon credits are traded on carbon trade exchanges and bought by
Fortune 500 companies that want to reduce their carbon footprint. Boomitra keeps its
commission and pays the rest amount to the farmers. Boomitra is implementing this model
in countries like Mexico, speciﬁcally for large ranches.
In India, implementing the business model becomes challenging as they work with
smallholder farmers. The land size is small, and the land records in many states are yet to be
digitized. The farmer's lack of awareness about carbon trading and scaling up is a big
challenge for Boomitra. Boomitra has partnered with FPOs, NGOs, and other agencies
working with farmers so that farmers can be convinced by the business model and enrol
themselves to sell their carbon credit. This organization also helps with necessary
documentation and consent regarding data sharing and privacy. Boomitra has its ground
team, which does the ground truth of land boundaries to map the farm of the respective
farmers correctly. Initial soil carbon is measured for each farm and is regularly monitored by
Boomitra. Boomitra also provides advisories on climate innovative agriculture practices like
zero-tillage to these farmers so that the soil carbon content increases over a period. After a
year, the carbon content of the soil is measured again. Any increase means the farmer has
gained carbon credit, which is certiﬁed by the certifying agencies from Washington DC. The
carbon credit is sold in the market by Boomitra, and the farmer receives an amount in
exchange for the carbon sold.
In this way, Boomitra is incentivizing farmers to create carbon-sequestering and improving
soil health by increasing the carbon content of the soil. In addition, it will result in efﬁcient
fertilizer utilization, enhanced soil moisture retention capacity, and increased productivity.
Case Study 2:
Potential for cross-border expansion
for Indian agritech start-ups
One hundred twenty million or 80% of the farmers in India are classiﬁed as small and
13
marginal . India has one of the most diverse climates ranging from tropical to alpine, with
equally diverse ecosystems. It has led to diverse agriculture practices. For the Indian agritech
start-ups to be successful and commercially viable, they must cater to the smallholder
farmers across various geographies. Many successful start-ups have cracked the market with
their innovative business models and solutions, which are customized to the farmer's needs.
The domestic success in diverse conditions makes their solution feasible for many Least
Developed Countries (LDCs) or developing countries with a signiﬁcantly large number of
smallholder farmers.
The table below highlights the state of agritech start-ups in the partner countries.
Table Showing the status of the agritech sector in partner countries
Countries Overall Status of
Agritech Sector
IndonesiaNascent
Detail
93% of smallholder farmers
Indonesian agri-food tech start-ups raised USD
165 million invested across 26 deals in 2019.
The Agritech sector positively impacted during
Covid-19 and pushed teams to innovate as food
security gained importance.
Many solutions are in the early stage, with less
than 10,000 users.
MalaysiaNascent
97% of farmers classiﬁed as smallholder farmers
20-50 active agritech start-ups implementing
solutions on the ground; domestic investments
coming up but not all start-ups funded;
development funds driven
KenyaIntermediate
80% of farmers are smallholder farmers
More than 50 active agritech start-ups are
implementing solutions: availability of domestic
investments.
13
“India at a glance” https://www.fao.org/india/fao-in-india/india-at-a-glance/en/ accessed on 7th June 2022 White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 49White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 50
Countries Overall Status of
Agritech Sector
UgandaNascent
Detail
85% of farmers classiﬁed as smallholder farmers
Ten active agritech start-ups implementing
solutions on the ground; availability of domestic
investments
20 dynamic agritech start-ups implementing
solutions on the basis; domestic investments
coming up but not all start-ups funded;
development funds driven
MalawiIntermediate
2 million smallholder farm families
More than 50 active agritech start-ups
implementing solutions on the ground;
availability of domestic investments
ZambiaNascent
95% of farmers classiﬁed as smallholder farmers
Lack of access to capital remains a signiﬁcant
barrier, and there is limited support for start-ups
in the growth phase.
Source: UNCDF and AIM Research
13 “India at a glance” https://www.fao.org/india/fao-in-india/india-at-a-glance/en/ accessed on 7th June 2022
The Indian agritech start-up sector, even though it has not unlocked its full potential, is way
ahead of many countries. More than 330 well-funded matured agritech start-ups spread
across sub-sectors like supply chain, e-commerce, precision agriculture, quality
management, and ﬁnancial services. The business models of these start-ups are built around
smallholder farmers. Also, the lack of a large number of matured start-ups offers a unique
opportunity for Indian start-ups to explore these markets. The Indian agritech start-ups have
set foot in South American and African markets. Start-ups like Boomitra, Ecozone, Skymet,
Agrosonic, and Satsure have a presence in different needs. Some of the strategies that the
Indian start-ups could adopt for cross-border expansion are:
Though there are challenges in entering a new market, support by the Indian government in
terms of policy and investment will help facilitate cross-border growth and collaboration.
a. Collaboration with local start-ups: This can be done by forming a Joint-Venture (JV)
with local corporates or start-ups where the solution belongs to the Indian entities, and
sales and marketing are made by the partnering start-ups or corporate.
b. Collaboration with local ﬁnancial institutions: This is most suitable for the start-ups
working in the agri-ﬁntech space. Satsure and Skyment have partnered with ﬁnancial
institutions in different countries to offer their solution. In addition, other start-ups in
the cohorts have signed a non-Disclosure agreement (NDA) with various ﬁnancial
institutions in Kenya and Malaysia.
c. Direct intervention backed by investment: The start-ups with more disruptive
products and services can directly open their ofﬁces in other countries. However, they
need sufﬁcient assets and backing from the funders to bear the cost. Boomitra and
Ecozone, with their disruptive solutions, have entered different emerging markets with
an outstanding response. White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 2White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 51
Case Study 3:
Agri-Fintech Companies ensuring ﬁnancial
inclusion among the farming communities
Gramcover is an insuretech start-up that serves as an aggregator for various insurance
companies and offers its product to its customer through its platform. The client can choose
from +400 different insurance products. For farmers, it offers crop and livestock insurance
through its platform. In addition, it provides Pradhan Mantri Fasal Beema Yojna (PMFBY) and
weather-based insurance in partnership with various insurance companies. The
fundamental steps are done digitally and without any paperwork. It also designs customized
insurance products and gets them reinsured by the reinsurers. The business model adopted
by Gramcover is as follows:
The above-mentioned solutions have led to the doorstep delivery of ﬁnancial services to the
farming community and have reduced the paperwork substantially.
Farminﬁnity is another start-up that has built its “credit scoring” platform. The solution tries
to solve one of the signiﬁcant challenges of agriculture ﬁnancing: the lack of credit history of
an individual farmer. Unfortunately, a large number of farmers have no credit history and
hence, ﬁnancial institutions hesitate to lend.
Farminﬁnity has developed a solution that does a credit scoring of such farmers based on set
parameters and thus provides the ﬁnancial institution conﬁdence in lending such farmers.
Farminﬁnity adopts two different business models, and these are:
a. It offers API integration where the ﬁnancial institution can link it with their platform
for the credit scoring of the farmers. Farminiﬁnity receives fees as revenue.
b. Farminﬁnity acts as a Banking Correspondent, does credit scoring on its platform
and manages the portfolio with the responsibility of collection. Farminiﬁnity receives a
small commission and income.
a. Gramcover integrates its API with the partners to provide the services. Some of its
partners are Business correspondents, small ﬁnance banks, NBFCs and banks acting as
physical shops.
b. The customer can download the Gramcover app and purchase any insurance
product offered by different insurance companies. VI. Way forward
Agritech solutions available in the market are making the lives of smallholders better by
improving access to quality input, access to market, reducing risks, access to information,
and a host of other products and services, resulting in improved productivity and price
realisation. Still, the agritech start-ups are not scaling up as fast as the start-ups in other
sectors. They face challenges regarding access to quality data, regulations, and the absence
of agriculture-related infrastructure.
To achieve the full potential of these start-ups and ensure food security following steps can be
recommended as a way forward:
Improving
last-mile connectivity
1
Due to fragmented land parcels and many smallholder farmers in India, it is challenging for
start-ups to reach out to individual farmers. Therefore, most agritech start-ups rely on local
institutions like Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) or FPOs or corporates having a
signiﬁcant farmer base to roll out their solution. The success of their model or interventions
depends upon the quality of the institutions or corporates. For example, the quantity and
quality of FPOs vary from state to state, affecting the start-up's operations. Therefore, to
ensure that all smallholders can beneﬁt from the services and products of the agritech start-
ups, the government needs to put signiﬁcant effort into building the capacity of local
institutions like FPOs or cooperatives. These local institutions will act as a conduit between
smallholders and start-ups. Still, they will also play a key role in enhancing the farmers'
income aligned with the government's focus on doubling farmers’ income. Also, the mission
14
to promote 10,000 FPOs across the country will go a long way toward boosting the start-up
ecosystem. In addition, establishing the Ministry of Cooperation will improve the
cooperatives across the country.
Access
to public data
2
The government has vast data on farmers, land records, ﬁnancial health, weather reports,
meteorological data, market, price, and mandi data. This data is critical for AI-based start-ups
or those start-ups that require maps and data related to land records and soil types. For
example, Fruitfal is a start-up which uses AI to estimate demand and price for speciﬁc
horticulture crops and requires historical data on production and price of the produce, which
is available to the government but not in a usable format. Similarly, Boomitra maps the
carbon sequestering at the farm level and sells the carbon to Fortune 500 companies.
Farmers receive a large chunk of the revenue derived from the proceeds, providing an
additional income for them by improving the soil conditions. However, Boomitra requires a
digital land record with the government department but is not readily available. Therefore,
the government should ensure that these start-ups access quality data.
A step in this direction at the national level could be an improvement in how data is collected,
stored, and processed so that the start-ups can access these while maintaining the
individual's privacy. The Karnataka government has implemented e-Sahamathi to solve the
15
issue of data privacy, consent, and data sharing with an interested third party .
15 “Data Sharing by PSUs – crossing the last mile” by Goel, A., Chawla, R. published by Business Line. https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/
data-sharing-by-psus-crossing-the-last-mile/article65051948.ece accessed on 7th May 2022.
Promoting local level
of infrastructure for farm-level processing
3
With the booming of agritech start-ups, there has been a signiﬁcant jump in utilising local
infrastructures like warehouses for storage or grading and sorting centre for primary
commodities processing. Often, this infrastructure is one of the critical criteria for the start-
ups to start their operations. The availability of such resources adds value to the product by
improving the quality of the product and fetches a higher price in the market, reducing
losses, improving the product's shelf life, and increasing farmers’ income. Many start-ups are
involved in procurement, and the revenue source is limited to margin. Therefore, they
compete with local traders with no additional beneﬁt to the farmers. The industry experts
highlight that these agritech companies can be sustainable only after value addition at the
local level. To create such values, they must partner with local institutions with agriculture-
related infrastructures for primary processing. Therefore, these start-ups must adopt a
model where they are physically present on the ground along with their digital presence.
Thus, the government should promote the creation of local agriculture-related
infrastructures by incentivising and providing ﬁnancing from formal ﬁnancial institutions. It
will boost the farmers' income and ensure the start-ups' scalability and sustainability.
Lack of policy around data sharing by the public sector was resolved by the
Karnataka government in collaboration with the World Economic Forum’s
Centre for Fourth Industrial Revolution India and other stakeholders. The
solution, known as e-Sahamathi, provides guidelines to ensure privacy and
data protection and at the same time creates enabling environment to
leverage the value of data for social and economic good. E-Sahamathi allows
citizen to provide her consent to the third party to use the data for speciﬁc
purpose. Through an API, third party can access the data of those citizen who
have consented. This ensures that the individual remains in the control of her
personal data.
e-Sahamathi: Indian state of
Karnataka shows the way
14 https://pib.gov.in/Pressreleaseshare.aspx?PRID=1696547 accessed on 9th May 2022
White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 53White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 54 The digitalisation
of licensing regime
4
Many agritech start-ups working on the input side often face license-related challenges.
These licenses require annual renewal, which is often cumbersome due to opaqueness in the
entire process. In addition, it often limits the scaling up of their operations. As a result, many
agritech start-ups avoid the input market, which still requires large-scale intervention to
provide access to quality input at a reasonable price on a timely basis. Creating transparency
around the licensing process by digitising the entire process will help the start-ups increase
access to information to the smallholders.
State-speciﬁc AgriTech policy to
promote agriculture-based start-ups
5
Only a few states like Delhi and Maharashtra have start-up policies to promote and nurture
start-ups. However, the agritech start-up needs a different kind of support where they
depend on government resources (data) and infrastructures (warehouse and cold storage)
to a great extent. Therefore, a distinct agritech start-up policy will go a long way in promoting
and facilitating many such start-ups. It will also help the government departments work
around the issues related to sharing of data, usage of data, and privacy issues by the private
ﬁrms.
These challenges are primarily related to regulations, understanding the market and its size,
and local facilitation. Regulation is a critical factor for start-ups while entering a new market.
In addition, there are challenges that the facilitation can overcome in terms of ﬁnding local
partners, meeting government ofﬁcials of the respective countries, and support in terms of
investment or grants. A central body working with industry associations, respective
embassies, and multilateral organisations can go a long way in promoting start-ups to
expand to other markets.
Within the Agritech Challenge, 8-10 workshops were conducted with ﬁnancial institutions,
private sector institutions, and development institutions from Indonesia, Malaysia, Zambia,
Malawi, Kenya, and Uganda for cross-border collaborations. Some of these institutions are
Agrobank in Malaysia, Standard Bank, Ecobank, One Acre Fund and Agra in Kenya, Malawi,
Zambia, and Uganda, respectively. These institutions have signed NDAs with 4-5 start-ups
from the primary cohort for piloting in the respective countries. These institutions will
facilitate these start-ups in customising their solutions, support them in accessing market,
and facilitate them searching for local partners.
16 https://msins.in/msins%20accessed%20on%209th%20May%202022
Establishment of facilitation centre for
agritech start-ups at local as well as global level
6
Many agritech start-ups struggle to ﬁnd the proper government connection for their
product and services. Many are unaware of the various schemes for the start-ups or the
source of grants or laboratory facilities. A state-level facilitation centre should ensure that the
start-ups can conveniently access public resources or leverage the government’s
infrastructure. These facilitation centres should act as a one-stop centre where they can
process the request of the agritech start-ups, facilitate their meeting with concerned
ofﬁcials, and provide access to government infrastructure to support their business. The
centre can also update the start-ups about various government initiatives and programs and
facilitate their participation. In addition, the facilitation centre should conduct investor
meets, donor programs, and mentorship programs for these agritech solutions. For example,
16
the Maharashtra State Innovation Society is a nodal government agency that supports start-
up ecosystems on multiple levels. It brings the entire start-up ecosystem to one platform and
allows the start-ups to participate in various government initiatives and access the VC
network. Though it is not speciﬁc to agritech, a similar facilitating centre at the estate level
can improve the success of agritech solutions.
Many Indian agritech start-ups have entered markets in Africa, South America, and Asia.
However, there are numerous challenges that these start-ups face while exploring
opportunities in other countries.
White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 55White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 56 Annexure I:
List of Main Cohort Track Partners
Cohort
Boomitra
Offering
Incentivising farmers on increasing the soil carbon content; advisory
services on the adoption of climate-smart agriculture
Fruitfal
AI-based pricing of horticultural crops (fruits) by aggregating demands;
training and advisory services to the intermediary on primary processing
and packaging
WRMS
Insurance services: and assurance on guaranteed farm production through
their App called Secufarm; advisory services to optimise input usage
Satsure
On-farm monitoring of the cropped area, weather data, soil mapping, and
yield estimation using their algorithm. Application in credit and insurance
business.
Gramcover
Insurance aggregator offering crop and livestock insurance
Ecozone solutions
Innovative solar-based cold chain container solutions
CropIn
Insect pest management services, insurance, crop growth monitoring
Stellaps
End-to-end solution for dairy co-operatives and companies to maintain
quality, including digitisation of dairy value chain through its in-house app
called MoPay
Skymet Weather
Insurance and Asset management services; agromet advisory services
Annexure II:
List of AIM Cohort
Cohort
Agrivijay
Offering
Grant e-commerce platform offering solar-based solutions like solar lights
and solar water pumps; physical store at the district level for sales,
marketing, and support services
Farmitopia
AI-based agro-advisory services to the farmers; support farmers in
scheduling farm operations.
Chakras Farm
Urban gardening services, setting up of playhouse and introducing
agriculture in schools for students
Mlense
Instant milk testing kit to test 6 different milk adulterants from a single
drop of milk
Satvik Agro
Processing fruits and vegetables purchased from tribal farmers
Carritus Mobility
Cold chain containers are offered on a rental basis
Farminﬁnity
Credit scoring method for farmers and banking correspondents in
partnership with NBFCs and Banks
Agrisonic
Goat farm management s ystem and livestock bazaar; Advisory services
speciﬁc to goat rearing
Ai-genix
AI-based insect-pest management devices
Coorgexpress
Eco-tourism in coffee-producing areas; experience centre offering a variety
of coffee for sales
Neeraventures
Handheld device and IoT sensors to monitor micro-climatic conditions
around crops with usage in the insurance sector and monitoring
horticultural crop growth
Transity
Digital technology for dairy value chain; an end-to-end digital platform to
manage the entire dairy value chain
White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 57White Paper on Indian Agritech start-up: Gearing up to Solve Food Security Challenges 58
Krishitantra
Instant soil testing device and instant soil report; Farmers can access their
soil report through the mobile app. “April/2023 Copyright Atal Innovation Mission, NITI
Aayog & UN Capital Development Fund
All rights reserved.
The views expressed in this publication are those of
the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those
of the Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog & the
United Nations, including UNCDF, or
their Member States" Creative Agency: www.stb-india.com
Join us to drive the
community of practice

खाद्य सुरक्षा चुनौतियों को हल करने के लिए 'गियरिंग अप' पर एआईएम-यूएनसीडीएफ श्वेत पत्र