Training and funding to promote agripreneurship will be a major focus
The central government is encouraging startups in the agricultural sector to contribute directly and indirectly for enhancing the income of farmers by providing opportunities to them and to provide employment to youth.
As part of this initiative the Innovation and Agri-entrepreneurship Development program has been launched under Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana to promote innovation and agripreneurship by providing financial support and nurturing to the incubation ecosystem.
These start-ups are in various categories such as agro-processing, artificial intelligence, digital agriculture, farm mechanization, waste to wealth, dairy, fisheries etc. Under the scheme there will be agripreneurship orientation, seed stage funding of R-ABI incubatees and idea/pre-seed stage funding for startups.
A total of 346 startups in the agriculture and allied sectors are being funded for a sum of Rs 3671.75 lakhs in this phase. This fund will be released in instalments. These start-ups will be trained for two months at 29 agribusiness incubation centres (KPs & RABIs) spread across India.
Training and mentoring will be provided on technology, finance, intellectual property, statutory compliance issues etc. DAC&FW has selected 5 Knowledge Partners (KPs) as Centres of Excellence.
