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HomePosts Tagged "agritech"
Agro Universities, Agrotech, R&D, Start ups

The partnership leverages BharatRohan’s unique experience in hyperspectral imaging for crops, focusing on creating a spectral library to improve pest and disease detection in paddy and cotton crops

BharatRohan, a pioneer in providing hyperspectral imagining-enabled drone-based crop monitoring services, is excited to announce a co-innovation partnership with AgHub, the Agri-innovation hub of Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University(PJTSAU). This collaborative effort aims to promote a culture of co-innovation, collaboration, and co-creation, facilitating advancements through synergies between Agritech startups and agricultural scientists.

The partnership leverages BharatRohan’s unique experience in Hyperspectral Imaging for crops, focusing on creating a spectral library to improve pest and disease detection in paddy and cotton crops. This initiative is expected to significantly benefit farmers by potentially increasing yields through a reduction in losses caused by pests, such as the Brown Plant Hopper and Pink Bollworm, and diseases like rice blast and boll rot, by 20-30 per cent.

Amandeep Panwar, Co-founder of BharatRohan, commented on the partnership: “This partnership marks a significant milestone in our mission to empower farmers. Utilising hyperspectral technology, we aim to provide invaluable insights leading to healthier crops, reduced input costs, and enhanced yields. Our collaboration with AgHub and PJTSAU underscores our dedication to sustainable and prosperous agriculture.”

The collaboration leverages innovative hyperspectral imaging and advanced drone technology, setting a new benchmark in early detection and intervention for crop management. This integration is anticipated to lead to more sustainable farming practices and healthier crops.

The partnership leverages BharatRohan's unique experience in

AgroPolicy, India, Sustainability

National Conclave aims to discuss and identify comprehensive support systems for Agri Startups in India that will foster innovation, sustainability, and profitability and make their solutions accessible to farmers

Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare in partnership with FICCI, CII & PHDCCI organised a National Conclave ‘Unleashing the Potential of AgriTech Startups for the Benefit of Farmers.’ Secretary, Manoj Ahuja, Additional Secretary, Faiz Ahmed Kidwai, Joint Secretary (RKVY), Ashish Kumar Srivastav and Joint Secretary (Extn.), Samuel Praveen Kumar along with other senior officers from Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare and representatives of FICCI, CII and PHDCII attended the conclave.

The conclave aimed to discuss and identify comprehensive support systems for Agri Startups in India that will foster innovation, sustainability, and profitability and make their solutions accessible to farmers. The conclave also explored strategies to overcome challenges, leverage technology, and capitalize on market opportunities to empower Agri Startups and drive positive impact in the agriculture sector.

FICCI organised two breakout sessions. The theme for session 1 was “The State Government’s Vital Role in Building Enabling Ecosystem for AgriTech in partnership with state governments”. Session 1 brought out the challenges faced by start-ups at the state level and recommendations on how the state governments can help in building an enabling ecosystem to overcome these. The major recommendations include- creating an AgHub: An inclusive agri innovation ecosystem, Agri Data Management Framework (2023), Creating a nodal agency for start-ups within the state governments, developing a start-up portal with a repository of information, knowledge and schemes with a chatbot facility, Start-up India can include an exclusive website with information on agriculture start-ups.

National Conclave aims to discuss and identify

Agrotech, Company News, IT, R&D, Start ups

Bhaasa is powered by speech recognition that can converse in 10 languages across 80+ dialects

spocto, the world’s leading debt support and risk mitigation platform announced its strategic partnership with KisanServ, a prominent AgriTech company based out of Pune, for the deployment of spocto’s AI driven multilingual voice bot ‘Bhaasa’. Through Bhaasa, Kisanserv would be able to communicate across different languages in real-time with thousands of farmers across 4 states.

Developed within spocto X platform, Bhaasa is a multilingual AI voicebot that communicates in regional dialects and languages, with context recognition capabilities. Powered by Natural Language Processing (NLP), Bhaasa can be integrated with the recovery interface and reduce human intervention, thus saving 30 per cent in resource cost every year for the lenders, while improving the customer experience for delinquent customers by over 47 per cent.

“The agricultural sector holds great significance not only for the government but also for banks. Given our extensive experience in the agricultural domain with banks, we enthusiastically embraced the challenge presented by kisanserv in a different world of agritech. We have developed modules in four languages – Marathi, Hindi, Gujarati and Kannada. This endeavour reflects our commitment to serving the needs of farmers and underscores the importance we place on the agricultural sector and its application to any industry,” said Sumeet Srivastava, CEO & Founder, spocto.

To make Kisanserv communication easily accessible and effective to Indian farmers, even from the remotest parts of India, Kisanserv partnered with spocto to develop a specific module that will solve their use case.

Acknowledging the same, Praveen Tiwary, Co-Founder & CTO, KisanServ, said “On our supply side, We work with thousands of farmers on a daily basis about their produce, and our operations. The challenge is always the variety of languages and the quantum of people we work with daily which leads to efficiency issues. And on our demand side, we have to talk to retail customers across metro cities as we have numerous retail outlets in Maharashtra. We wanted a great uniform communication experience on both sides of the spectrum irrespective of different communication strategies. It’s been a great experience so far with spocto developing 2 different communication strategies for both sides that have led to significant savings for us and led to a great customer satisfaction index when we looked at our feedback score.”

Bhaasa built within the spocto X platform is amongst the first of the many creations of the spocto innovation lab (SIL). SIL was launched late last year and is India’s first innovation lab dedicated to the debt collection segment of banking industries in India and the Middle East. Through an expedited method, SIL is intended to speed the development of disruptive technologies such as AI/ML, big data, data security, and so on. SIL is working with all participants in the collecting ecosystem to prepare for the future by taking a digital-first strategy. Being an NLP collection voice bot with human-like engagement, Bhaasa is powered by speech recognition that can converse in 10 languages across 80+ dialects.

Bhaasa is powered by speech recognition that

Agrotech, E-commerce, Horticulture, India, Start ups, Supply Chain

Consumers can view pesticide test reports for Superplum fruits and see the actual farm where their fruits were grown

Superplum, an agritech startup based out of Noida, recently launched a unique feature that allows consumers to scan a QR code and pay a bonus to the farmer who has grown the food they are eating. Consumers can already view pesticide test reports for Superplum fruits and see the actual farm where their fruits were grown.

All this is possible due to the company’s fully digitised and traceable supply chain that tracks every pack that the consumer receives. Superplum’s end-to-end digitised platform allows granular quality control and analysis of all products. The company works across 20 states and delivers over 20 fruits from the farm to retail stores. 

Shobhit Gupta, the CEO of Superplum, said, “From the outset, our system has been designed to benefit both consumers by getting better quality fruits and farmers by getting them a better share of consumer spending. We also work with farmers and support them to grow high-quality, safe fruits and reduce wastage through investment in cutting-edge technology and an innovative cold chain. If you love the fruits you are eating, it’s now easy to show your appreciation.”

Consumers can view pesticide test reports for

Agrotech, India, Machinery - Pre-harvesting

Gujarat Governor Acharya Devvrat, who is also a deep-rooted researcher, has shared some of the Agritech innovations developed by him with Union Minister of State (IC) Ministry of Science and Technology; Minister of State (IC) Ministry of Earth Science; MoS of Prime Minister’s Office and Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions Dr Jitendra Singh, at Raj Bhavan. 

Devvrat, who is a great votary of natural farming as a way to avoid the ill effects of chemicals used in conventional farming, said that he has launched a PhD programme in Natural Agriculture by Gujarat University at the Indian Institute of Sustainability (IIS), which will cover various aspects like rural management, environment management, innovation, Agri-entrepreneurship, Agribusiness and Value Chain Management.  He also endorses the idea of an integrated approach to promote Agri-tech Start-ups to make farming easy and more profitable. Dr Jitendra Singh also informed Acharya Devvrat the success of Purple Revolution in J&K is now being replicated in other hilly States with similar climatic conditions like Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and in North-Eastern States as a pilot project

Gujarat Governor Acharya Devvrat, who is also

AgroPolicy, Agrotech, Allied Industry, Biofuel industry, India, Sugar industry

Nitin Gadkari , Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, while addressing the felicitation programme of National Cogeneration Awards 2022 in Mumbai gave out a few clarion calls for the agri sector. He said, “Over-production of sugar is a problem for the economy; we spend Rs 15 lakh crore” per year for import of petroleum products, hence we need to diversify the agriculture sector towards energy and power sectors”. 

The minister exhorted the industry of the crucial need to focus on alternative fuels with the help of futuristic technologies. “While 65 to 70 per cent of our population depends on agriculture, our agricultural growth rate is 12 to 13 per cent only; the sugarcane industry and farmers are a growth engine for our industry. And the next move should be cogeneration to increase revenue from sugar. The industry should produce less sugar and produce more by-products, embracing the vision for futuristic technologies and using the power of leadership to convert knowledge into wealth. This will enable the farmers to become not only food growers, but energy producers as well,” Gadkari said.

The minister highlighted that while our requirement was 280 lakh tonnes of sugar this year, the production was more than 360 lakh tonnes; this could be utilised due to the situation in Brazil.  However, we need to divert production towards ethanol as the ethanol requirement is very high. “Last year’s capacity was 400 crore litres of ethanol; we have taken a lot of initiatives to increase ethanol production. Now is the time for the industry to plan demand for ethanol, using technologies such as power generators run by bioethanol,” pointed out Gadkari.

The minister reminded the industry that there is scope of using harvesting technologies for cutting of sugarcane. “Harvesting machines can use ethanol as a fuel, making the circular economy possible.”

Gadkari said that the sugar industry faces many problems and that we need rationalisation of power purchase rates; some states are not giving rates as per the central government policy, this is one reason why the sugarcane industry is not economically viable. The minister also urged the industry to raise this matter at appropriate forums.

Nitin Gadkari , Union Minister for Road

Supply Chain

Superplum employs science and technology to increase the shelf life of litchis through a proprietary multi-faceted approach

Superplum, an Indian Agritech company, has built the country’s first modern supply chain to deliver fresh litchis from farms in Muzzafarpur to all over the country. For the first time in India, litchis are being chilled, trimmed, cleaned and packed at the farm level to retain freshness. They are then transported using Superplum’s Fresherator, a proprietary IoT-based transport system that keeps the fruits fresh in an environment that can be remotely monitored and controlled.   

In the past, some litchis would go through a sulphitation process to increase their shelf life but this process made the fruit unfit to consume, due to which it has been banned in several countries. With a promise to deliver safe-to-eat fruits, Superplum employs science and technology to increase the shelf life of litchis through a proprietary multi-faceted approach. 

While these Muzzafarpur Litchis are currently being delivered to stores and homes in Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida and Bengaluru, the company plans to expand their delivery across the country and the world.

Superplum employs science and technology to increase

Company News, Sustainability

This report reflects Corteva’s continued transparency across the company’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) efforts

Corteva, Inc has released its 2021 Sustainability and ESG Report, providing an update on the company’s progress on its commitment to deliver science-based solutions for addressing the world’s most pressing environmental, economic and social challenges.

This report reflects Corteva’s continued transparency across the company’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) efforts. The 2021 report reinforces the company’s focus on building an agriculture ecosystem where farmers, society and business can thrive, while underscoring Corteva’s commitment to enriching the lives of those who produce and those who consume. 

“The challenges facing society and the planet demand urgent action, and we believe agriculture plays a vital role in providing viable solutions,” said Chuck Magro, Chief Executive Officer, Corteva Agriscience. “By focusing on the areas which we believe will have the greatest impact toward achieving climate positive agriculture, we will create a more resilient and productive food system. We will rely on innovation and technology to guide our journey.”

“We support farmers around the globe with the necessary tools and innovations to produce what our food system demands while conserving resources and sustaining the land,” said Sam Eathington, Chief Technology and Digital Officer, Corteva Agriscience. “The progress in this report outlines the next phase of our sustainability work – and includes concentrated efforts in sustainable innovation, biodiversity, greenhouse gas emissions, and inclusion, diversity and equity.”

The 2021 Sustainability and ESG Report provides a global update on key social and environmental topics.

This report reflects Corteva's continued transparency across

Agro Universities, Agrotech, Bee keeping

Collaboration for research and technological exchange was explored between the PAU and Israel during the visit

Yair Eshel, Agriculture Attache, Embassy of Israel, visited the Apiculture Unit of the Department of Entomology, Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) and interacted with apiculture scientists and postgraduate students in apiculture as well as bachelor students in agriculture undergoing an experiential learning programme in commercial apiculture.

Dr DK Sharma, Head of the Department, apprised the visiting member of the progress, achievements and recognitions of the PAU in the discipline of apiculture. He also highlighted the pioneering role of PAU in the successful introduction, multiplication and release of the Italian honey bee in the country.

Dr Pardeep Kumar Chhuneja, Incharge of the Apiculture Unit, shed light on PAU’s strong outreach programme in the promotion of Apiculture, including the training programmes for the Apicultural scientists of other State Agricultural Universities and ICAR Institutes. Dr Chhuneja informed that Yair also visited the PAU Apiary and research and training facilities including various apicultural research labs like diseases diagnostic lab, bee breeding lab, etc.

During the meeting with apiculture scientists of PAU, collaboration for research and technological exchange was explored between the PAU and Israel, particularly for the production and post-harvest handling of bee products, bee breeding, bee pollination and innovative bee husbandry and data recording technologies. The possibilities of training the PAU Apiculture scientists from Israel in advanced Apicultural technologies were also explored. Yair assured full support for the future joint ventures in apiculture including for some specialised training of the PAU bee scientists in Israel.

Collaboration for research and technological exchange was

Agro Universities, AgroPolicy, Floriculture, Start ups

Inaugurated six distillation units under CSIR-IIIM for lavender situated at six different places

Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Ministry of Science and Technology; Minister of State (Independent Charge) Ministry of Earth Science; MoS of Prime Minister’s Office and Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh said that Bhaderwah is the potential destination of agri-tech startups of the country.

After inaugurating the country’s first ‘Lavender Festival’ Bhaderwah, the Union Minister described Bhaderwah as the birthplace of India’s Purple Revolution.

“The country’s first National Institute of High Altitude Medicine is being built in Bhaderwah which will attract scholars and researchers not only from India but across the globe generating employment opportunities for the region. The establishment of this institute is proof of developmental initiatives reaching far-flung places at an unprecedented rate compared to the last seventy years,” Dr Singh added.

Referring to the lavender cultivation in the region, Dr Singh said that Lavender is an avenue of employment generation and research opening many paradigms of development for the region. He further said that the agriculturist Bharat Bhushan called the Brand Ambassador of Purple Revolution in India is an inspiration for youth in Jammu and Kashmir toward Start-up culture.

Dr Singh said that under lavender cultivation, potential farmers’ income has not only been doubled but quadrupled.

Dr Singh also inaugurated six distillation units under CSIR-IIIM for lavender situated at six different places. Three MoUs were also signed between CSIR-IIIM Jammu with Agro Voltic Power, Mussoorie Uttarakhand, Lyallpur Khalsa College, Jalandhar Punjab and Fine Fragrance Power, Mumbai.

Dr DS Reddy, Director CSIR-IIIM Jammu, Dhanenter Singh, DDC Chairperson, Doda, Sangeeta Bhagat, Vice-Chairperson DDC Doda, Dr Sumit Garola, Nodal Scientist CSIR besides scientists and potential farmers cultivating lavender were present during the festival. Many industrialists and potential farmers were felicitated during the lavender festival.

Inaugurated six distillation units under CSIR-IIIM for

Agrotech, Finance

To connect to half a million farmers

Bengaluru-based leading digital aggregator in Agritech space, Ergos The Grain Bank, aims to further expand the footprint to 650 locations with revenue growth of upto Rs 1,800-2,000 crore by 2023-24. Ergos The Grain Bank has scaled across 26 districts in Bihar, 10 districts in Karnataka and 17 districts in Maharashtra with over 1,45,000 farmers actively engaging on the technology-based platform. They are adding 400-450 new farmers every day on its tech platform. After huge success in Bihar, the company aims to strengthen its presence in Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra and enter few new agriculturally rich states in the country.

Ergos, CTO, Umesh Gowda, said, “Grain digitalisation is building a scalable, mobile-first technical platform where Ergos intervenes in the entire life cycle of the farmer using technology. We are also gearing towards monitoring the crops through satellite images, provide soil-based crop and input advisory, and produce-market connect, everything in real time, through Smart-Price-Engine.”

Grain bank enables farmers to convert their grains into tradable digital assets, avail credit like overdraft facility against those assets through partner Banks and NBFCs in few minutes, and get better prices for their produce with a scope to optimise their income by 30-40 per cent in one season easily.

Kishor Jha, Founder & CEO, Ergos The Grain Bank, said, “Ergos has proven its business model in Bihar and recently entered the other key markets. With the response from the farming community and food processors, we aim to grow 3X growth Y-o-Y comfortably with a targeted revenue of Rs 1800-2000 crore by next year.”

Nearly 50 per cent of the households in the vicinity of the Ergos Grain Bank location are connected through smart phones today, indicating how out of 140 million farmers in the country, close to 70 million farmers are already using smartphones and just need a bit of handholding and assistance for the first few transactions.

Aligned with the government’s vision of Digital India and Bharat Connect that brings the rural landscape on the Internet connectivity map, Ergos aims to empower each farmer and enable them to use Grain Bank mobile app to manage their finance, where they can sell, borrow, and preserve their grains.

Ergos is constantly building the tech capability of the Grain Bank app to execute ~10,000-12,000 transactions initiated by farmers and buyers in one second which is the speed required to service 12-13 million farmers in next three to four years for executing secured transactions worth of Rs 12,000-14,000 crore for one season crop yield on Grain Bank platform and to facilitate worth Rs 4,000-5,000 crore small tickets short term farmer loan on this platform.

To connect to half a million farmersBengaluru-based

Agrotech, Finance, Start ups

The agritech startup works with farmers from across the state, ensuring fair prices and supplying pure, traditional and wholesome farm produce to the world

Dehradun-based agritech startup Valley Culture has raised funds worth Rs 2 crores from TMRW Network. The agritech startup works with farmers from across the state, ensuring fair prices and supplying pure, traditional and wholesome farm produce to the world. Valley Culture works with over 4000 farmers across the state of Uttarakhand of which the majority are women giving hope and a lifeline to more than 600 widows.

Founders Shikha Prakash and Robin Nagar plan to build a complete Farm to fork ecosystem, to help Himalayan farmers get better prices, build market linkages & direct access to customers. Also, they are steadfast and determined to promote a healthy lifestyle by reviving the traditional foods of Uttarakhand. The startup targets Rs 100-crore turnover in the next 18 months.

The agritech startup works with farmers from

R&D

MoU to add strength to Erisha Agritech’s design and development of advanced powertrain systems and components for electric vehicles, and hydrogen fuel cells

Erisha Agritech , a Rana Group Company, has entered into an agreement with The Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI), towards design and development of advanced powertrain systems and components for electric vehicles, and hydrogen fuel cells developed under Erisha Agritech Private Ltd. A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was inked to this effect between the two companies.

Erisha Agritech Private Limited is India’s fastest growing agri-equipment and machinery company, and has brought to the market a wide range of agricultural tractors, combine harvesters, implements and other equipment and machines of latest technology and energy efficiency. Meanwhile, The Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) is a leading automotive R&D organisation in the country set up by the automotive industry with the Government of India.

Sudhir Rana, Director Operations – Erisha Agritech says, “The MoU with The Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) is a major step for us, as it would immensely benefit the design and development projects we undertake. The concept of design and the development of advanced powertrain systems and components for EVs, and also hydrogen fuel cells we would work on would actually be propelled to a whole new level with the agreement. Erisha Agritech is happy to have the support of ARAI in our upcoming endeavors.”

As a technology company, Erisha Agritech had made a mark at the Krishi Darshan Expo, organised in Hisar in March, 2022, by unveiling its fully indigenous electric tractors, and agricultural drones.

MoU to add strength to Erisha Agritech’s

Agrotech, Finance

The funds will be utilised in research activities and to strengthen GROWiT App

Surat-based protective farming agritech platform GROWiT has raised Rs 3 crores in seed funding through a close network of investors. The round was led by Mehul Shah from IVY Growth. Coppermint, Gaurav Singhvi (Co-founder, WFC), Rajeev Goel (Sagar Life Sciences), Sunay Shah (Mahati Electrics), Rohan Desai (CEO, Triumph Capital), and Mukul Goyal (Tapi Capital) are some of the investors that joined in the round.

The platform plans to make use of these funds by investing in its research and marketing processes that will ultimately enable GROWiT in expanding its customer base and produce standard quality cost-effective protective farming materials and products. The fund will also be utilised for strengthening the GROWiT App, which is designed to assist farmers with a better understanding of protective farming practices and products.

The funds will be utilised in research