Agri-tech startups from India show support to new farm bills, offer market linkages
01 October 2021, New Delhi: India’s agricultural industry today is going through a rollercoaster of changes with farmers protesting new farm laws rolled out by the centre. In order to make lives of farmers easy, agritech startups have been working towards removing middlemen of the traditional mandi system to increase farmers profits, digitizing farmers’ trade, increasing market linkages and offering crop advisories.
Despite the protests, India’s agri-tech startups are open to welcome the government’s policy. The farm bills are expected to give more freedom to the farmers in order to sell their produce and to create an open market for interstate and intrastate agricultural trade. Farmers are seeing the benefits of collaborating with the startups and the new farm bill is expected to strengthen their relationship.
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Here are four agri-tech startups which are not only making technology more accessible but also helping farmers with input materials.
Aqgromalin
Aqgromalin is one of the fastest-growing farm diversification companies that aims to supplement the income of small landholding farmers through ready to implement micro-farms. It makes access easier for various agricultural implements and technology. Incepted in 2019, the company is based in Tamil Nadu and has strong operations in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Backed by technology, the full-stack company offers innovative growth ideas to farmers in the areas of – Agriculture, Aquaculture, Animal Husbandry, and Insect farming. It provides supplement incomes for existing farmers especially small tract holders by offering them a variety of growing options. It’s buyback policy ensures farmers that they get a fair price for their produce hence improving their trust in the system. Access to information, Machinery, Credit, and Materials are made at a single point which makes lives better and profitable for farmers.
Agribazaar
It enables farmers to list their produce and negotiate directly with buyers, setting their own trade terms. Buyers place orders online and Agribazaar provides end-to-end logistics services from direct sourcing to timely delivery at distribution centres.
DeHaat
DeHaat’s app lets farmers know what their crops need by calling them in their local language. It also provides them with flexibility to order farming inputs through the app and also sell their output directly to the company, removing middlemen. It uses data science, agri-science and machine learning engines to enable corporate customers to keep track of transactions, view commodity procurement pipelines and make online orders.
Unnati
Unnati provides farmers with information about their soil, the weather and their farming history, enabling them to make more informed decisions about their business. It also offers insights on sourcing and correctly applying chemicals and other inputs. Produce is then listed on Unnati’s platform, giving farmers access to a wide range of buyers. Unnati also offers a banking service to help farmers purchase production inputs and manage sales receivables like a business.
