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AgroPolicy, Start ups

Aims to promote startups and encourage entrepreneurship in the state

Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently launched Madhya Pradesh’s Startup Policy and Implementation Plan – 2022 which aims to promote startups and encourage entrepreneurship in the state. This startup policy has been especially developed to strengthen and bring to reality the entrepreneurial ideas of the youth of Madhya Pradesh. The Prime Minister launched the policy virtually at a programme organized at the Brilliant Convention Center, Indore in the presence of the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

Prime Minister Modi also launched the Madhya Pradesh Start-up Portal, which will be a one-stop avenue for entrepreneurs, providing them with vital information and guidance on launching a start-up. The portal will be integrated with the central government’s start-up portal. Besides this, Prime Minister Modi engaged in online interactions with several entrepreneurs and encouraged them to build India from the grassroots.

Modi said, “We have come a long way, and today, the Madhya Pradesh portal and i-Hub Indore has been successfully launched under the start-up policy of the state. I want to congratulate the government of Madhya Pradesh for this exceptional feat.”

Madhya Pradesh has over 1,900 start-ups with more than 800 start-ups founded by women entrepreneurs. The state is an agricultural powerhouse and aims to promote more than 200 start-ups in the agriculture sector with special emphasis on product-based start-ups. The state has also focussed energy on the capacity-building of startup incubation centres. The policy will usher innovation, experimentation, and risk-taking, boosting the spirit of entrepreneurship in the state.

Aims to promote startups and encourage entrepreneurship

Agrotech, Start ups

CropTrails will help SatSure expand and strengthen its international market reach into its target geographies in Africa, LATAM and SEA

Bangalore based SatSure, a deep tech startup working at the intersection of spacetech, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Software as a Service (SaaS) to drive decision intelligence, is pleased to announce the acquisition of SaaS application CropTrails, which was conceptualised and incorporated in the year 2018 by Indore-based startup OEPP Innovations Private Limited.

CropTrails is a web and android application designed to bridge gaps in the processes of farm management. The mobile application is used as an information collecting tool by the field officers or supervisors to record and digitise information about farmers, farms and crops. The application allows the users to monitor and control the crop cycle, track input usage like fertilisers, access weather forecasts, and track farm visits by the supervisors, among others. CropTrails also doubles as a field force productivity monitoring tool with in-built role-based user management.

This development comes in after SatSure raised $5 million in Pre-Series A funding in a round earlier this year. SatSure shall be transforming CropTrails into a no-code platform for IT teams of agribusinesses to rapidly prototype and build their in-house tool that can be easily integrated with SatSure Sparta’s datasets.

“Farm digitisation tools like CropTrails are necessary for countries such as Nigeria and the Philippines. It forms the first digital layers on top of which other services can be rendered. Thus, this acquisition will help SatSure expand further and strengthen its international market reach into its target geographies in Africa, LATAM and SEA. SatSure will also use the collected data and feed it into its proprietary algorithms to increase its learning rate as part of this deal,” said Prateep Basu, founder and CEO of SatSure.

CropTrails will help SatSure expand and strengthen

Agrotech, Finance, Start ups

Hydenmet plans to capture a majority of the small and marginal farmers segment

Bengaluru-based start up Hydenmet, has raised $150k from angel investors through ah! Ventures Angel platform.

Hydenmet was incorporated in 2019 and won the state of Bihar as their customer in August 2019 when they developed a mobile application called ‘Indravajra’ for detection and early warning of lightning and dangerous thunderstorms.

Hydenmet plans to capture a majority of the small and marginal farmers segment, which has been ignored by all largest agritech players by creating a unique per acre per year pricing model for a range of support services offered to farmers working with Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs). Hydenmet has 3-year contracts signed with over 25 FPOs covering 50,000 acres of cultivation spread over 3 states since 2021 February. Of the 100 million acres of cultivation in India by small & marginal farmers, even if Hydenmet gets 5 per cent in the next few years, they can see revenues of Rs 2000 crores per year.

Hydenmet plans to capture a majority of

Agro Universities, Seeds, Start ups

The last date for the receipt of the application is May 31, 2022

The Punjab Agri Business Incubator (PABI), Directorate of Extension Education, Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), has invited applications for Cohort IV of Uddam (pre-seed) and Udaan (seed) from the agripreneurs/agristartups of Punjab and its neighbouring states (Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, and Jammu and Kashmir).

Giving details, Dr TS Riar, Principal Investigator, said that the last date for the receipt of the application is May 31, 2022. Applicants can apply online or offline. The application form and other related information can be downloaded from www.paupabiraftaar.co.in, he informed. Dr Riar said that PABI has produced several entrepreneurs (male and female), who are running their agri-businesses successfully in Punjab after acquiring training from PAU’s Skill Development Centre and availing facilities being offered under PABI. The training will help in becoming the youth financially independent, he added.

The last date for the receipt of

Agrotech, Start ups

The start-up will use the funds to build out the product and accelerate business in targeted value chains

Bengaluru-based ag-tech start-up, Agrizy has raised $4 million in a seed round led by Ankur Capital. This round also saw participation from Omnivore and notable angels like Rajesh Yabaji (CEO, BlackBuck), Zetwerk’s Co-founders Srinath Ramakkrushnan, Amrit Acharya, Rahul Sharma, and Vishal Chaudhary among others.

The funds raised will be utilised to build strong business and engineering teams, develop a suite of digital services for the processed agri marketplace and ramp up customer traction in targeted value chains across various locations in India. The start-up will use the funds to build out the product and accelerate business in targeted value chains. 

Founded in September 2021 by Vicky Dodani and Saket Chirania, Agrizy is developing a tech-first platform to bridge the processed agri supply chain. The tech platform connects the processors and buyers of non-perishable farm products across both food and non-food categories like jute, oilseeds, cereals, pulses, and others to optimally discover and fulfill transactions.

This will support agri processors with innovative technology solutions, for effective utilisation to execute the trade through Agrizy’s logistics partners. The founding team comes with a good mix of operations, finance, and logistics experience at high-growth start-ups like Blackbuck, Bizongo, and Zoomcar, as well as deep ties to the agri processing domain. 

Vicky Dodani, Co-Founder, Agrizy, said, “We aim to be the single point of contact for the agri processing units by providing them an end-to-end fulfillment platform and simplifying their procurement and sales cycle. The recent round of funding from two notable funds investing in Agri Tech reinvigorates our vision of transforming the processed agri supply chain.”

Saket Chirania, Co-Founder, Agrizy, added, “There is a lot of untapped potential in the way agri processing units can leverage technology to grow and thrive. Agrizy offers solutions across digital vendor management, and supply and value chain automation to its Agri Processing Units. We are sustainably growing our business by 100 per cent MOM from inception.”

The start-up will use the funds to

Agrotech, Environment, Start ups

KAVACH is weather-based financial protection for farmers

Leading agritech startup nurture.farm and Digisafe insurance brokers announced their partnership on offering KAVACH – a weather-based cash guarantee programme launched for nurture.farm farmers. Farmers using the startup’s services can enrol in the programme. As a pilot, the farmers of Maharashtra and MP can buy this coverage at a nominal fee.

KAVACH offers farmers a cashback up to Rs 500 per acre against unseasonal rainfall. Highly customised as per local weather data, the KAVACH will transfer payouts directly to a farmer’s bank account if rainfall breaches a pre-set limit. The farmers would not need to intimate for claims. Instead, the payouts will be automatically triggered based on the IMD weather data.

Dhruv Sawhney, Business Head and COO, nurture.farm said, “Offering KAVACH is an incremental step towards enhancing farmer resilience. Through this service, we are nudging a behavioural change in farmers by encouraging them towards embracing financial protection tools. Since every season, every region faces weather-related calamities, we wish to cover our farmers against such weather-related adversities. Through KAVACH, we have defined the parameters of cash out so that farmers will benefit based on localised weather. The automatic payouts, which happen timely within a week of the rainfall breach, will be a gamechanger. We wish to extend this to 3,00,000 farmers this year.”

Within three weeks of its launch, more than 1,21,000 KAVACH have been availed by 30,000+ farmers across nine states, covering 280 districts.

KAVACH is weather-based financial protection for farmersLeading

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

AgroPolicy, Agrotech, Start ups

Bridge 2.0 will provide for a strong collaborative platform between Indian and Israeli innovation ecosystems

Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms or C-CAMP announced the second edition of its 2021-launched Indo-Israel Innovation Bridge with the Bengaluru Consulate General of Israel. The kick-off was done by Naor Gilon, His Excellency, Ambassador of Israel to India, and Dr Taslimarif Saiyed, C-CAMP CEO & Director in the presence of Jonathan Zadka, Consul General (CG) of Israel to South India, Bengaluru.

The Indo Israel Innovation Bridge Edition II aims to take the current, largely exploratory C-CAMP- CG, Israel partnership a notch higher by creating synergistic ecosystem-to-ecosystem tie-ups specifically in the agriculture sector, a strong suit of both C-CAMP and the Israeli Innovation Ecosystem.

Ambassador of Israel to India, Naor Gilon said, “In Israel, we see strong potential in the speed & dynamism of India’s growing innovation ecosystem. Also unique in Indo-Israel relations is the very tangible people-to-people connectivity. It is now up to us and efforts like Indo Israel Innovation Bridge to create avenues to enhance this natural partnership and steer it towards mutual benefit and growth.”

Bridge 2.0 will provide for a strong collaborative platform between Indian and Israeli innovation ecosystems. It also opens up provisions for the C-CAMP Govt of Karnataka’s Centre of Excellence for Agri Innovations launched Grand Challenges in Agriculture programme to accept Israel startups/innovators. The Grand Challenge is looking for innovations addressing pest-control in coffee cultivation, soil quality detection and conservation and increased shelf life of produce.

A prominent hurdle in such partnerships is often the internationally variable regulatory pathways and clearance systems. By this agreement, C-CAMP will bring the agency to this potential hurdle through its deep ecosystem networks. This apart networking opportunities, incubation access to C-CAMP’s high-end technology platforms, stakeholder connections and a rich, cross-disciplinary academic environment are on offer for technology validation and scale-up needs of interested Israeli parties.

Bridge 2.0 will provide for a strong

Start ups

Dr Abhilaksh Likhi has invited the start-ups and FPOs to submit their proposals

As part of India’s efforts to showcase the country’s investment-friendly policies and growth opportunities in agriculture and allied sectors at EXPO2020 Dubai, Dr Abhilaksh Likhi, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, has invited the start-ups and FPOs (Farmer Producer Organisations) to submit their proposals to the ministry, and assured them that they would be considered for providing equity grants, management costs, and other available support measures. Dr Likhi suggested this at the inauguration of ‘Food, Agriculture and livelihood’ fortnight at the India Pavilion in EXPO2020 Dubai.

Shubha Thakur, Joint Secretary (Crops & Oil Seeds), Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, T R Kesavan Group President (Corporate Relations & Alliances) Tractors and Farm Equipment Ltd (TAFE), Srinivas Kuchibhotla, Partner, KPMG, among other officials from the ministry also attended the event.

The ‘Food, Agriculture and Livelihood’ fortnight (February 17th – March 2nd) will comprise various sessions which will be presided over by representatives from the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying, Ministry of Cooperation.

On the theme for the first week of the fortnight, that is, millets, Shubha Thakur said, “Millets is an important area for us, and we would like to utilise this global platform to learn about the health and nutritional aspects of millets and bring back the glory of millets.”

India produces all the nine commonly known millets and is the largest producer and second-largest exporter of millets globally.

During the launch of the ‘Millet’ theme as part of the ‘Food, Agriculture and Livelihood’ fortnight at the sector floor at the India Pavilion, the delegation led by Dr Likhi unveiled the Millet Book comprising nutritious and delightful recipes made using millets. The delegation also launched the first ‘Millet food festival’, during which the visitors will get to relish the healthy and nutritious delicacies prepared using the millets.

Dr Abhilaksh Likhi has invited the start-ups

Agrotech, Start ups

Experts emphaise on how innovations played a key role in green and white revolution

Dr Trilochan Mohapatra, Secretary (DARE) & Director General, ICAR, Government of India emphasised that nurturing agri innovations is imperative for agricultural development. Innovations played a key role in green and white revolution.

Addressing the 4th edition of ‘FICCI Agri Startup Summit & Awards’, Dr Mohapatra said, “The evolving technologies and agri innovations are to be mainstreamed and deployed in the fields.” Dr Mohaptra mentioned that there has to be efficiency, climate resilience and high productivity with quality and we need more and more players to be part of it.

Neelkamal Darbari, MD, Small Farmers’ Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC), Government of India said that the timing is apt to leverage technologies for the small and marginal farmers. The government has already launched the e-NAM (National Agriculture Market) which is a pan-India electronic trading portal that networks the existing APMC mandis to create a unified national market for agricultural commodities.

TR Kesavan, Chairman, FICCI National Agriculture Committee & Group President, TAFE Ltd said that FICCI Awards for agriculture start-up has emerged as a leading platform for entrepreneurs to showcase their potential.

Vivek Chandra, CEO, Global Branded Business, LT Foods, said that agri start-ups will play a crucial role in bringing in the required technology and innovation needed to meet the increasing demand for food as the world population grows.

Ashok Varma, Partner, PwC said that at present, there are more than 700 AgriTech start-ups in India that are developing customised solutions and products to make the agricultural value chain more profitable and remunerative. With an impressive inflow of funding, more than 48 per cent of AgriTech CEOs in the country believe that they will have the next AgriTech unicorn within a three-year time frame.

Amit Mundawala, MD and Co-founder, Star Agribazaar Technology highlighted that Agritech companies can play important role in enhancing farmers’ income. This can be achieved if we have a proper database of all the parameters needed in remote sensing resulting in accurate farmer advisory services which will, in turn, increase the yield, reduce the input cost, and make the proposition win-win for all stakeholders.

Hemendra Mathur, Chairman, FICCI Task Force on Agri Start-ups & Technology & Venture Partner, Bharat Innovation Fund said that Indian AgriTech is entering its third phase, which will be driven by increasing farmer adoption of new-age innovations and a significant degree of consolidation in the start-up space.

The 4th edition of FICCI Agri Start-up Awards was announced during the event along with the release of FICCI-PwC Knowledge report “Agri start-ups – Fostering collaboration to bring paradigm shifts in Indian agriculture’ and publication on Agri Start-ups by FICCI Task Force members. PwC was the knowledge partner for this event.

Experts emphaise on how innovations played a

Agrotech, Start ups

The startup believes on digitising the agriculture industry by integrating IOT implementation.

Pune-based start-up Bharat Krushi Seva believes in digitising the agriculture industry by integrating IOT implementation. The leading IT company in the agricultural field provides an online platform for farmers to opt for new technologies. Bharat Krushi Seva has a certified and skillful group of domain experts, agriculture and agribusiness consultants, IT professionals, marketing specialists having vast experience in their respective fields.

Sharayu Lande, Founder and CEO, Bharat Krushi Seva said, “Having eight plus years of experience working with technology, helped us understand the power of data and technology and how technology can make a huge difference in the life of Indian farmers. With this initiative, in 2019 we started working with 1,000 farmers on building the algorithm of data analytics and our proof of concepts.”

Hemant Dhole Patil, Co-founder and COO, Bharat Krushi Seva said that, “We are Building Bharat Krushi Seva which is an App based platform for Farmers. Where farmers can increase their productivity using our cumulative set of services starting from Soil Testing, personalised crop specific weather monitoring and alerting system, personalised crop consultancy for early prediction of pest & diseases, credit services to buy the inputs & connectivity with bulk buyers for market linkage.”

Currently the start-up is in touch with 40,000+ farmers in Maharashtra with two business tie ups for input companies with Nirmal Seeds & Zydex, 3 Business Tie Ups in output. The start-up has a vision for the “Mass Adoption of Digital Agriculture”, that will directly impact five million farmers in the coming five years.

The startup believes on digitising the agriculture

Agrotech, Start ups

The section will showcase latest technologies & innovations transforming agriculture.

The 12th AGROVISION, India’s Premier Agri Summit, scheduled from December 24-27, at Reshimbagh Ground, Nagpur, will witness the latest technology & innovations transforming Agriculture with the latest products and start-ups from all around India. The conference will have a special pavilion for ‘Technology Innovation’ at the 12th Agrovision.

As Agriculture witnesses new innovations and technology, it becomes important to understand latest innovations and products. In the workshop at Agrovision 2021, experts will be present throughout the expo to give detailed information on latest technologies, products and agri-tech start-ups.

Farmers from in and around Vidarbha and adjoining states will be participating in the event this year. Furthermore, conferences on current issues in agriculture and allied agri sectors will be held. Around 400 exhibitors are likely to participate in the event.

The exclusive media partner is Agro Spectrum India along with BioSpectrum India and Nufoods Spectrum India. MM Activ Sci-Tech Communications is the organiser of the event.

The section will showcase latest technologies &

Organic, Start ups, Types

Participants discussed issues on expanding of the existing businesses of agri-allied activities

North Eastern Development Finance Corporation (NEDFi) recently organised a business-cum entrepreneurs meet at its branches in Namchi and Gangtok. The meet was attended by 30 potential and existing entrepreneurs from Namchi and Jorethang Town. During the meet, the participants were informed and deliberated upon the various loan schemes of NEDFi highlighting its low-interest rate. The attendees were briefed about the documentation aspects and loan process of NEDFi along with various initiatives undertaken by NEDFi for the development of the region. 

During the interactive session, the participants raised doubts, mainly on setting up and expanding the existing businesses of agri-allied activities, restaurants etc, and were resolved by the officials.

The event was attended by entrepreneurs based out of the East and North Districts of Sikkim. NEDFi officials explained in detail various schemes of NEDFi and the new reduced interest rate. The participants were also briefed on MOVCDNER to encourage organic produce processing units among FPO’s. 

Participants discussed issues on expanding of the

Agro chems – Fertilizers, Inputs

Results published in the CRM program impact report indicate 92 per cent overall stubble burn avoidance across the enrolled farms, with close to 420,000 acres of the land saved from being burnt

nurture.farm, a digital platform for sustainable agriculture, has published the results of the Crop Residue Management (CRM) Program: the largest ever project to eliminate stubble burning in India. The CRM program impact report has evidenced benefits across reduced greenhouse gas emissions, improvements in soil health and farmer livelihoods, as well as reduced usage of fertilisers.

Results published in the CRM program impact report indicate 92 per cent overall stubble burn avoidance across the enrolled farms, with close to 420,000 acres of the land saved from being burnt, resulting in the prevention of 1,038,965 tonne of carbon dioxide emissions from being released.

Through the CRM program, nurture.farm supported over 25,000 farmers across 23 districts in Punjab and Haryana with access to farm mechanisation, and a bio-enzyme to decompose their crop stubble. Throughout the project, over 1000 field personnel from nurture.farm led a fleet of more than 700 boom sprayers serviced over 420,000 acres of paddy fields with the bio-enzyme, developed by the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), free of cost to the farmers. When sprayed onto the stubble, the PUSA bio-decomposer enzyme decomposes the stubble in 20-25 days, increasing organic carbon in the soil and maintaining overall soil health.

Satellite monitoring of the paddy fields – in partnership with the European Space Agency – was used to identify farms that had been burnt at least once between 2018-2020 and were also used to help analyse farmers adherence to the program. For ensuring the program’s efficiency and scale, nurture.farm developed three mobile applications to improve farmer connectivity and educate farmers on regenerative practices, conduct area mapping, arrange spraying schedules, and monitor machine and equipment use.

Results published in the CRM program impact