How startups are disrupting India’s agriculture sector
Agriculture employs 50 percent of India’s workforce and contributes nearly 20 percent to the country's GDP. The Indian agrarian economy is estimated to be between $300 billion and $500 billion. However, innovation in farming has just not kept pace with other industries. Today, agriculture remains the least digitised of all major industries. Disruption is the need of the hour, and, startups have taken the cue.
India is the world's largest producer of spices, pulses, milk, cashew, and tea. It's the second largest producer of wheat, rice, fruits and vegetables.
Agriculture employs 50 percent of India’s workforce and contributes nearly 20 percent to the country's GDP. The Indian agrarian economy is estimated to be between $300 billion and $500 billion.
These are large figures, but what they don't reveal is the fact that Indian farmers are still stuck in the past.
Around 86 percent of them are small and marginal with land holdings of less than two hectares. That's over a 10 crore farmers with limited or no access to technology, inputs, credit, capital, and efficient markets.
The pace of innovation in farming has just not kept pace with other industries. Today, agriculture remains the least digitised of all major industries. Disruption is the need of the hour, and, startups have taken the cue.
Yet only one to two percent of India’s agri value chain is today touched by agritech.
It is therefore no surprise that venture investors see this as an opportunity to grow. In fact, in the last three years, agritech startups have raised over a billion dollars.
Seeded by venture capital (VC) money and cultivated by the digital shift, there are over a 1,000 agritech startups in India, whose innovations are turning Indian farms into tech fields.
To discuss the road ahead for the agritech sector, CNBC-TV18 spoke to Shashank Kumar, Founder & CEO of DeHaat; Milan Sharma, Founder & CEO of Praman; and Mayank Tiwari, Founder & CEO of Reshamandi.
Watch video for more.
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