The 16th edition of Agrovision opened in Nagpur with the force and clarity of an institution that has outgrown its origins and now stands as one of India’s most powerful engines for agricultural transformation. What began sixteen years ago under the leadership of Shri Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways, has evolved into a national platform shaping policy direction, accelerating scientific adoption, and catalysing private-sector investment. This year’s conclave made one message inescapably clear: the architecture of India’s agricultural future will be defined by artificial intelligence, precision irrigation, dairy modernisation, citrus excellence, fisheries revival, and women-led growth.

Setting the stage for this transformation, Ravindra Boratkar, Managing Director of MM Activ Sci-Tech Communications Pvt. Ltd. and President of Agrovision, highlighted how Agrovision enters its tenth year under the Agrovision Foundation with a broader mandate, deeper ecosystem partnerships, and a sharper focus on technology-driven sectoral renewal. He acknowledged the long-standing contributions of the Agrovision Committee and paid heartfelt tribute to Dr. C.D. Mayee, whose vision has served as the intellectual backbone of the movement since its inception. Boratkar articulated that Agrovision 2025 strategically elevates dairy and fisheries—two sectors with vast, under-realised potential across Vidarbha and India. He stressed that technology in irrigation, dairy, and fisheries is no longer an adjunct but the central driver of modern agriculture, and reaffirmed Agrovision’s commitment to equipping farmers with digital tools, decision-support systems, and scientific know-how.

Reflecting on the Foundation’s legacy of institutional capacity-building, Boratkar noted the transformative impact of the Farmers’ Training Centre established in Nagpur and announced the Foundation’s next major step—setting up a full-fledged Agri-Business Incubation Centre to nurture startups, the new forerunners of India’s agribusiness revolution. He welcomed the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) for launching specialised workshops on AI and technology adoption in agriculture, and commended the hands-on training programs in orange cultivation, sericulture, bee keeping, and food processing delivered in collaboration with the MSME Institute in Hyderabad. Extending a warm welcome to participants, stakeholders, and innovators, he reaffirmed Agrovision’s role as an inclusive, innovation-driven ecosystem designed to empower farmers, startups, institutions, and policymakers alike.

Delivering a structurally forward-looking address, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Union Minister of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, emphasised the importance of connecting laboratories to land and ensuring that farmer-centric research remains the backbone of India’s agricultural progress. He announced a Rs 70-crore national Citrus Gene Bank in Nagpur—one of the decade’s most important investments in horticultural genetics. Chouhan reiterated India’s stance against GM seeds but celebrated the country’s strategic entry into gene editing with two new rice varieties.

Highlighting a 46 percent rise in foodgrain production over the past decade, Union Minister credited enhanced seed quality, technology adoption, and scientific extension. Calling for rapid expansion of drip irrigation, mechanisation through custom hiring centres, and tools for smallholders such as cotton pluckers and cane harvesters, he outlined a future built on mechanisation, diversification, and digitalisation. He committed to MSP procurement of toor, chana, urad, and masoor, expansion of crop insurance to include waterlogging and animal damage, and national-scale direct selling platforms with transportation costs fully borne by the Government of India. “Agrovision,” he concluded, “is the Triveni Sangam of knowledge, science, and innovation—a place where India’s agricultural future is being designed.”

In his keynote address, Nitin Gadkari emphasised that Agrovision’s insights today directly shape Maharashtra’s agricultural decision-making. With nearly three lakh farmers participating annually, the platform has grown into India’s most influential farmer training ecosystem. He credited Agrovision and Dr. Panjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth (PDKV) for reviving Vidarbha’s orange sector, with scientific training helping push productivity from three tonnes to a targeted twelve tonnes per hectare within the next five years. Gadkari highlighted the Rs 450-crore investment in establishing the Agro Convention Centre at PDKV as a foundational pillar for future knowledge dissemination.

Recognising the urgent need to strengthen India’s citrus backbone, the Minister urged Shivraj Singh Chouhan, to empower the Citrus Research Institute in Nagpur to certify twelve nurseries across Vidarbha, ensuring varietal purity and genetic consistency for India’s next wave of citrus expansion. Gadkari spotlighted Agrovision’s strong alignment with AI-driven agriculture, unveiling a predictive mobile application capable of issuing real-time alerts on pest incidence, disease onset, water scheduling, and weather variability. Declaring that “AI is the new-age crop doctor,” he called for a renewed national AI-in-Agriculture Policy to revive cotton, sugarcane, soybean, toor, and oranges in Vidarbha. In a major development for dairy and horticulture, he announced that Mother Dairy, Safal, and Dhara would collectively invest Rs 800 crore to create integrated milk, fruit, and oilseed processing infrastructure in Vidarbha, positioning the region as a dairy-forward agri-industrial hub. His address touched upon fisheries revival, sericulture-linked handloom opportunities, global benchmarking in soybean production, and the rollout of ethanol tractors projected to save farmers up to Rs 1 lakh annually. “Vidarbha must enter an era defined by prosperity, productivity, and pride,” he concluded, “not distress.”

Adding a Maharashtra perspective, Dattatray Vithoba Bharne, Minister of Agriculture, Maharashtra, stressed that Vidarbha now requires a structural agri reset—one anchored in new-generation technologies in orchard management, irrigation, and dairy. He emphasised the centrality of women in the region’s dairy revival and confirmed that Maharashtra is developing a new agricultural blueprint focused on value addition, climate-smart agriculture, and farmgate remuneration. He noted that nursery governance, genetic standards, and certified planting material will become foundational pillars of Maharashtra’s horticulture policy.

Bringing the cooperative lens to the fore, Minesh Shah, Chairman, National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), emphasised that scientific intervention has transformed India’s dairy landscape. He announced that NDDB’s six-lakh-litres-per-day Mother Dairy plant at Butibori is nearing launch—a pivotal milestone in Vidarbha’s dairy trajectory. He celebrated the participation of more than 35,000 women in Vidarbha’s dairy ecosystem, marking a quiet but powerful transformation in rural livelihoods. Shah highlighted NDDB’s development of two new fodder varieties designed to address regional shortages and affirmed that the Vidarbha–Marathwada Dairy Project stands as a benchmark for cooperative-led rural development. He added that NDDB will revive NDDB Grameen Samuday, strengthen value chains, and establish a modern cattle-feed plant in Vidarbha as part of Agrovision’s transformative commitments.

STPI’s announcement of dedicated workshops on AI and digital agriculture, combined with MSME-led programs in processing and entrepreneurship, further solidified Agrovision’s position as a catalyst for technology-led agribusiness transformation.

As Agrovision 2025 concluded, what emerged was not merely a conference but a national transformation blueprint—one grounded in AI, precision irrigation, dairy modernisation, citrus genetics, fisheries renewal, and women-led rural value chains. The signal from Nagpur was clear, compelling, and forward-facing: productivity must rise, costs must fall, technology must lead, and Indian farmers must prosper.

—- Suchetana Choudhury (suchetana.choudhuri@agrospectrumindia.com )