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Agrotech, North America

The new robotic device scans field ecosystems providing detailed real-time data

Solinftec, a global leader in agricultural digitalisation, will expand upon its partnership with GROWMARK, one of North America’s largest agricultural cooperatives, with a collaborative project focussed on a new cutting-edge AgTech robotic device.

With more than 15 years of experience developing digital ag solutions throughout various geographies and crops around the world, Solinftec’s new robot is state-of-the-art technology built to scan and monitor fields. This, connected with Solinftec’s ALICE platform, works together to orchestrate machine operations. Programmed with a neurological network featuring a complex detection algorithm, the new in-field robotic device has the ability not only to scan for crop health and nutrition, insects, and weeds but is built to monitor the entire field ecosystem and provide real-time insights.

The goal is to provide farmers and agronomists with a new level of information to increase yields, improve inputs usage, lowering environmental impact.

GROWMARK will collaborate with Solinftec to run the robot throughout the entire 2022 season where it will fine-tune the technology of agriculture operations in North America from planting to harvesting.

“GROWMARK and our System of FS Cooperative members are recognised as cutting-edge partners by the Farmer of the Future,” says GROWMARK Innovation Director Heather Thompson. “We believe in leading the market with products and technologies customers didn’t know they needed but can’t imagine their operation without.”

“We are looking at the future of farming,” adds Lance Ruppert, GROWMARK’s director of agronomy marketing technology. “We have been working with and utilizing Solinftec’s leading agricultural technologies for over three years and are excited to partner on a project with the potential to change farm practices for the better of the industry and environment.”

With the launch of its new AgTech robot and current ALICE technologies, Solinftec continues to be committed to protecting and respecting its users’ privacy, abiding by core data privacy principles to protect data. Farmers and users maintain ownership of their data and may choose to share results at their discretion.

The new robotic device scans field ecosystems

Allied Industry, People

Bags the award for exemplary work in advanced bio economy

Dr Pramod Chaudhari, Founder and Executive Chairman, Praj Industries was bestowed with the coveted 2022 William C Holmberg Award for his exemplary contributions during the recently concluded Advanced Bioeconomy Leadership Conference (ABLC) 2022 at Washington DC, USA.

According to Dr Chaudhari, the award comes first time to India at a time when we are celebrating the 75th year of Independence, which gives me immense joy. Indian bio economy is poised for exponential growth on the back of the Nation’s Net Zero commitments outlined in the recently concluded COP26 summit.

Bags the award for exemplary work in

Agrotech, World

Launch in North America with future collaboration expansions in Europe and Asia Pacific.

Over the next decade, agriculture and the food system will undergo a massive transformation to produce enough and affordable food for the growing population on limited arable land. Innovative and breakthrough technologies are needed and BASF supports this transition by leveraging the potential of the best digital agriculture ideas from inside and outside the company with its open innovation platform AgroStart which will now be established on a global level.

First introduced in 2016 in Brazil and continuously rolled out across Latin America, AgroStart benefits today from learnings and successes that pave the way for the expansion of the open innovation platform in North America and for future market entries in Europe and Asia Pacific.

AgroStart pairs these ideas with mentorship, market access, exploratory capital and new ways of working. Bringing together trusted capabilities from BASF and entrepreneurs enables quick, efficient and cost-effective co-creation of digital agricultural solutions that help farmers worldwide to tackle the many challenges they face.

AgroStart complements further co-creation initiatives and programs from BASF. The Open Innovation Platform Agro focuses on collaboration with scientists from universities, research institutes, biotech companies and pharmaceutical companies to develop new crop protection compounds.

“With the global launch of our open innovation platform AgroStart, we combine the world’s most promising ideas – be it from BASF’s or external’s bright minds – with our expertise, direct access to our global customer base and markets, mentoring, as well as capital to cultivate the future of digital agriculture together,” said Vincent Gros, President of BASF’s Agricultural Solutions division.

Launch in North America with future collaboration

Pulses, Types

The estimated production of pulses in 2021-22 as per the DA&FW is 26.96 million tonnes

The Union Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Ashwini Kumar Choubey in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha has informed that as per the report of Working Group constituted by NITI Aayog on Demand and Supply Projections Towards 2033 – Crops, Livestock and Agricultural Inputs (February 2018), the demand for pulses is projected to increase from 26.72 million tonnes in 2021-22 to 32.64 million tonnes in 2029-30. The estimated production of pulses in 2021-22 as per the Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare (DA&FW) is 26.96 million tonnes.

The Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare implements the National Food Security Mission (NFSM), a Centrally Sponsored Scheme, which aims at increasing production of rice, wheat, pulses, coarse cereals and nutri-cereals through area expansion and productivity enhancement in the identified districts of the country; improving soil fertility, farm level productivity besides, transfer of technology through demonstrations and trainings, incentives on critical inputs like quality seeds, water saving devices, farm equipment and machinery etc. 

To boost agricultural productivity, the Government is implementing various schemes for supply of farm inputs such as seeds, fertilisers, agricultural machinery and equipment, irrigation facilities, institutional credit, etc., at subsidised rates to the farmers.

The estimated production of pulses in 2021-22

Bee keeping, R&D

The results showed blueberries pollinated by Beeflow were substantially bigger – more than a 50 per cent increase in average berry size by gram

Washington State University (WSU) Department of Horticulture, Beeflow has announced the first-round results of research involving Beeflow pollination services for blueberry crops. The study, led by Dr Lisa Wasko DeVetter, PhD, Associate Professor, Small Fruits, was conducted across two farms in northern Washington in 2021, using the Duke variety of blueberries, and showed larger berries on the plants pollinated by Beeflow bees.

The results showed blueberries pollinated by Beeflow were substantially bigger – more than a 50 per cent increase in average berry size by gram – than berries pollinated through conventional pollination approaches. Additionally, the research team observed greater foraging by Beeflow bees on sub-optimal weather days, when the air temperatures were colder, than non-Beeflow bees, which increased the flight hours of the Beeflow pollination.

“Our goal is to innovate in order to optimise pollination in a way that has not been done before,” said Matias Viel, Beeflow Founder & CEO. “We know how important our work is to increasing biodiversity and helping to build an agriculture system that is more harmonious with nature, so these positive results are monumental to achieving this goal.”

Studies of this nature require researchers to conduct their work over three cycles in order to validate and confirm the results. The next round of field trials, which have been funded by the WA Blueberry Commission, will be conducted by Dr DeVetter and her team during 2022 focusing on the Liberty variety of blueberry, a notoriously more difficult variety to pollinate.

The results showed blueberries pollinated by Beeflow

Agro chems – Fertilizers, AgroPolicy

The commissioning of the three units will add 38.1 LMTPA indigenous urea production in the country.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs chaired by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, has given approval for the proposal of the Department of Fertilizers for extension of applicability of New Investment Policy (NIP)-2012 for the three units of Hindustan Urvarak & Rasayan Limited (HURL) viz. Gorakhpur, Sindri and Barauni.

HURL, incorporated on 15th June, 2016 is a Joint Venture Company by Coal India Limited (CIL), NTPC Limited (NTPC) and Indian Oil Corporation (IOCL). HURL is reviving the erstwhile Gorakhpur and Sindri Units of FCIL and Barauni Unit of GFCL by setting up new gas based Urea Plants with the installed capacity of 12.7 Lakh Metric Ton Per Annum each (ILMTPA). The cost of three HURL Urea projects is Rs. 25,120 crore. GAIL is supplying Natural Gas to these three units of HURL.

The state-of-the-art based HURL Plants are a part of the initiative taken by the Government to revive the closed urea units of SCIL/HFCL in order to achieve self-sufficiency in urea sector. The commissioning of the three units will add 38.1 LMTPA indigenous urea production in the country and help to realize the vision of the Hon’ble Prime Minister to make India ‘Atmanirbhar’ (self-reliant) in the urea production. The Project will not only improve the availability of fertilizer to farmers but will also give a boost to the economy in the region including development of infrastructure like roads, railways, ancillary industry etc. besides ensuring food security to the nation.

All three HURL units have various unique features like state of the art blast proof control room equipped with DCS (Distributed Control System), ESD (Emergency Shutdown System) and environment Monitoring Systems. There is no offsite waste water disposal in these plants. The systems are operated by the highly motivated, dedicated, well trained Operators. HURL-Gorakhpur unit has India’s first Air Operated Bulled Proof Rubber Dam of 65 mtrs length and 2 mtrs height.

These three facilities integrate the world’s best technologies aiming to meet the demand for urea in Seven States of India, namely Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Odisha.

The commissioning of the three units will

Agrotech

The programme defines clear milestones to cover all phases of the rice growing cycle from pre-sowing to harvesting

Corteva Agriscience, the global agriculture company, has recently introduced ‘Udayan – Tarakki ka Naya Savera’- an integrated farmer engagement programme is focused to establish and nurture a relationship with Corteva’s customers and channel partners. Aimed at empowering the farmers and bringing prosperity to them, the programme focuses on 3As – Aware, Alert, Act, as an enabler of change. The programme defines clear milestones to cover all phases of the rice growing cycle from pre-sowing to harvesting. It further aims to create awareness and sensitise rice farmers on brown plant hoppers (BPH) menace, timely and effective usage of Pexalon, a science-based and sustainable solution to manage the BPH menace, thus increasing yield productivity by 10 per cent.

With the help of ‘Farmer Connect App’, farmers can scan unique QR codes printed on Corteva products to distinguish between a ‘genuine Pexalon product’ against counterfeit, engage with fellow rice farmers and encourage others to use Pexalon.

In a span of 4 months since the launch of Udayan programme, Corteva brought more than 10 lakh acre farmland under various crop protection and care. More than 1.13 lakh farmers stayed connected through the app, and thousands of field photos were shared. Lakhs of farmers interacted on social media and learnt to use better crop protection products.

This programme was amplified by building a robust campaign ecosystem connecting all on-ground activities with digital programme via the Farmer Connect app. Commenting on the program, Gurpreet Bhathal, Marketing Director, Corteva Agriscience South Asia said, “Corteva is committed to working towards developing technology-driven solutions to meet farmers’ needs today while anticipating tomorrow’s challenges. We aim to provide products and services to help farmers produce what our food system demands while conserving resources and sustaining the land. In line with this commitment, our ‘Udayan’ programme focuses on educating the farmer community to use sustainable crop protection products that empower growers, protect their crop with precision.”

The programme defines clear milestones to cover

Acquaculture, AgroPolicy

Centre under the PMMSY scheme, inter-alia, provides financial assistance to the State Governments and Union Territories  for the development of fishing harbours and fish landing centres.

The Visakhapatnam Port Trust under Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, Government of India has finalized the Detailed Project Report for Modernisation of Fishing harbour at Vishakhapatnam at an estimated cost of Rs.152.81 crore under Central Sector in convergence with Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY) of Department of Fisheries, Government of India and Sagarmala scheme of Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, Government of India.

Setting up of fishing harbours depends on several factors such as assessed need, availability of land, project feasibility, receipt of complete project proposal from the State Governments, etc. The Department of Fisheries, Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying under the PMMSY, inter-alia, provides financial assistance to the State Governments and Union Territories (UTs) for the development of fishing harbours and fish landing centres. Under PMMSY, the central financial assistance up to 60 per cent of project cost to the State Governments and 100 per cent for UTs is provided under the Centrally Sponsored Scheme component for the development of fishing harbours and fish landing centres. Besides, the Government of India meets the entire cost under Central Sector for modernization of fishing harbours exclusively owned by the Central Government. The PMMSY also provides for suitable linkages and convergence with the “Sagarmala” scheme of the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways.

 Further, in order to address the infrastructure requirements of fisheries sector, the Department of Fisheries, Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying during 2018-19 created the Fisheries and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund (FIDF) with a total fund size of Rs 7522.48 crore. Under FIDF, concessional finance is provided to State Governments and their entities including private sector for development of fisheries infrastructure including fishing harbours and fish landing centres. States including Andhra Pradesh are availing assistance under the above schemes for establishing fishing harbours.

Centre under the PMMSY scheme, inter-alia, provides

AgroPolicy

It is a progressive step towards ensuring better remunerative returns to the jute growers and to incentivise quality jute fibre

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), chaired by the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has approved the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for raw jute for 2022-23 season on March 22, 2022. The approval is based on recommendations of the Commission for agricultural costs and prices.

The MSP of raw jute (TDN3 equivalent to TD5 grade) has been fixed at Rs 4750 per quintal for 2022-23 season with an increase of Rs 250- over the previous year. This would ensure a return of 60.53 per cent over all India weighted average cost of production. The announced MSP of raw jute for 2022-23 season is in line with the principle of fixing the MSP at a level of at least 1.5 times all India weighted average cost of production as announced by the Government in the Budget 2018-19.

It assures a minimum of 50 per cent as margin of profit. It is one of the important and progressive steps towards ensuring better remunerative returns to the jute growers and to incentivise quality jute fibre.

The Jute Corporation of India (JCI) will continue as Central Government Nodal Agency to undertake Price Support Operations and the losses incurred, if any, in such operations, will be fully reimbursed by the Central Government.

It is a progressive step towards ensuring

Agrotech, Supply Chain, Warehousing

Agri Reach is capable of establishing industry-standard warehouse operations anywhere across the country within 24 hours

Sohan Lal Commodity Management Private Limited, India’s leading Post Harvest Management Group (SLCM Group) has recently announced the receipt of ‘Patent Certificate’ from the Patent Office, Government of India for its application titled “Methods for Real Time Data Management” filed on December 16, 2013. SLCM Group is the only company in the Indian Agriculture sector that has registered a technology patent in the Agri Logistics (Warehousing) segment till date that is spanning 75 years post-Independence.

Agri Reach, SLCM Group’s proprietary solution, allows real-time monitoring and management of crops. Under the umbrella, the invention offers a diverse set of services such as audit receipts, quality control, and surveillance. Agri Reach is capable of establishing industry-standard warehouse operations anywhere across the country within 24 hours.

Commenting on this achievement, Sandeep Sabharwal, Chief Executive Officer, SLCM Group, said, “Observing the increasing pace of technology penetration, I had the vision of ‘Phygitalising’ the warehouse management system over a decade ago. With a dedicated team of professionals, we created ‘Agri Reach’ – a system that enables effective warehousing solutions agnostic of infrastructure, geography, and crops. With firm belief in our innovation and a passion to improve Indian agriculture, we applied for the patent 9 years ago. Today, it gives me immense pleasure to say that our patent application has received its accreditation from the Government of India. This brings us one step closer to revolutionising agriculture at the ground level.”

The impact of Agri Reach implementation across the business verticals of SLCM Group has resulted in remarkable growth, which is considered as an industry benchmark. In 2017, SLCM Group was handling Assets Under Management (AUM) worth Rs 1010.9 Crore per day. In comparison to this, the current outstanding AUM handled by the company per day has a net worth of Rs 5322.75 Crore (as on March 20, 2022).

Agri Reach is capable of establishing industry-standard

China

The new traits include change of the leaf angle and improvement in drought tolerance of corn

Origin Agritech Limited, an agriculture technology company, announced that the company, together with its partner China Agricultural University, has submitted applications for bio-safety certificates for six newly developed gene edited traits that significantly increase the yield of corn crops.

The new traits include change of the leaf angle and improvement in drought tolerance of corn. Changing the leaf angle and plant types will improve the photosynthesis efficiency and increase the planting population, which in turn increases yields. The new traits will also improve the water use efficiency and drought tolerance for corn plants. Origin is currently integrating these traits into its commercial hybrid corns, including the company’s nutritionally enhanced corn. 

In late January, China announced that the country would allow gene edited crops and that the approval process would be very streamlined as compared to the process for getting a new GMO trait approved.

Origin began creating gene edited corn traits in 2017 and already has developed many other desirable traits. Additionally, Origin’s insect resistant and herbicide tolerant GMO corn is also in the approval process. All of these traits could be integrated into these corn crops as well, further increasing yields.

“Given the current challenges facing the world of food inflation, environmental change and uncertainty of food exports from certain countries due to geopolitical events, we are thrilled to be playing a major role in improving food security,” said Dr Gengchen Han, Origin Agritech’s Chairman.

The new traits include change of the

Agrotech, Finance

Insta-Release aims to empower farmers with quick access to their farm produce for value optimisation upon repayment of loans

Arya.ag, India’s largest and fastest-growing integrated grain commerce platform, has recently announced another industry-first, Arya’s Insta-Release – One Click Loan Repayment and Commodity Discharge. Leveraging its technology stack, Arya.ag has been able to optimise its release process to happen within seconds – which otherwise by current industry standards takes over 24 hours to a week.

Agricultural market prices are quite dynamic. The platform’s Price Intelligence mechanism combined with immediate access to the farmers’ stocks – loaned and otherwise, enables them to make prompt & informed decisions on commodity sales. With Arya’s marketplace search engine that connects sellers to buyers across the country and its embedded logistics service, users can now seamlessly reach buyers in no time.

The launch of innovative Insta-Release services aims to empower farmers to immediately optimise their farm produce upon repayment of loans. Insta Release leverages Arya.ag’s pioneering integrated digital platform and allows the farmer to gain complete control of her farm produce immediately upon repayment of loans – all this at just click of a button. Apart from convenience, the Insta-Release offering drives home transparency, efficiency and ease of Arya.ag’s integrated service offerings to farmers.

To release stocks, registered customers can log on to their dashboard, choose how many bags of funded or non-funded bags they wish to release. Once they select the quantity, the platform instantly generates details of the rent and loan outstanding accrued against those bags. A user can pay instantly on the platform to receive the Release Order in a matter of seconds.

Anand Chandra, Arya.ag’s co-founder, said, “Our endeavour at Arya.ag is to align the supply and demand in a secure yet mutually beneficial proposition. We recognise that reduced turn-around-time and lower transaction costs benefits all stakeholders; however immediate payments benefit small-hold farmers, and immediate delivery of stocks is critical for buyers”.

 Arya.ag’s Insta-Release leverages AI, ML, IoT to deliver an enriching experience to end-users. Instant loans, online payments and instant release of commodities ensures that agri-commodity becomes a powerful tool in the hands of the producer.

Insta-Release aims to empower farmers with quick

Agrotech, Start ups

The team have built a digital platform with a big Bharat footprint – including 500,000 app users, 4 million rental hours and 4 million acres of farmland

Mahindra Group has increased its stake in Carnot Technologies, an ag-tech startup, to approximately 69 per cent. The group has also affirmed its commitment to its vision of making Krish-e, the group’s farming as a service vertical, India’s largest ecosystem of digital products and solutions. As part of the round, an attractive ESOP pool for future employees has also been created.

Talking about the investment Senior Vice President of Farm Equipment Strategy and Head Krish-e Ramesh Ramachandran said, “This investment signals our strategic commitment to Carnot. They have been at the forefront of building for Bharat and innovating specifically for farmers. Since our last investment in late 2020, they have been our partner in leading the digital product and technology vision for Krish-e and in just under 18 months we have built a digital platform with a big Bharat footprint – including 500,000 app users, 4 million rental hours and 4 million acres of farmland. We now deepen the ties and continue building on our strengths.”

Carnot Technologies is a start-up founded by IIT Bombay alumni which developed the leading agriculture IoT platform Simha (rebranded to Krish-e Rental) which now has over 25,000 tractors, harvesters and sprayers working on over 3 million acres of land each season. The platform is protected by 5 patents and was awarded the Qualcomm Design in India award for $100K by then Minister of Cabinet for Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad.

“The team has also developed the Krish-e app which through its unique and intuitive farmer centric design is helping farmers earn up-to Rs 15,000 more per acre.” said Pushkar Limaye, Co-founder & CTO at Carnot. “In the course of our partnership with M&M, we realised that someone had to understand our farmers, and make products that are innovative, highly cost conscious and make sense for our farmers. And if it’s not the next generation of engineers and entrepreneurs then who will build them? With this round of investment, we also want to move into top gear, in pursuit of building a great team and a data driven culture within every function.”

The team aims to invest more in their technology and people to scale rapidly in the next year. Carnot CEO and Co-founder Rohan Vadgaonkar added “With our technology and product mindset and Mahindra’s strong brand and presence in rural India, we’re perfectly poised to build India’s largest agri marketplace.”

The team have built a digital platform

Animal Health, Finance

The funds will be utilised to support the growth momentum of the Company

Provet Pharma Private Limited, headquartered in Chennai, one of the fast-growing animal health care companies in India, raises an undisclosed amount from N+1 Capital, one of India’s largest revenue-based growth capital funds. The Company will be using this fund to support its expansion plans of all its operating verticals. Devansh Shah, Bilanz Capital Advisors is the advisor to the deal.

With its highly regarded leadership, business strategy and execution capability, the Company has managed to achieve its mark in the Animal Healthcare industry. Despite the micro and macro level challenges in the recent years, the Company has been growing by an astonishing CAGR of more than 40 per cent while its EBITDA margin is outpacing the revenue growth by growing more than 90 per cent CAGR.

Speaking on the fundraising, Dr Muthu Selvan, Co-founder and Managing Director of the Company, said that the Indian Animal Health Care industry is growing at a CAGR of around 10 per cent and the Company is focusing majorly on the products well suited to dynamic market requirements. He also highlighted the fact that the industry is shifting towards the usage of non-antibiotic feed additives and the product portfolio of the Company has been already built to ride on this shift with more innovative and conceptual products in the pipeline. 

“Provet has built a strong sales and distribution network pan India since its inception. It is a preferred partner to many mid to large firms in the poultry and aquaculture space. The Company’s products are well established in the industry. We are impressed by the Company’s growth potential and are excited to partner with Provet,” said Ashish Singla, Managing Partner, N+1 Capital.

The funds will be utilised to support