9 Agritech startups making Indian farmers self-reliant

9 Agritech startups making Indian farmers self-reliant
Agritech in India has seen a skyrocketing growth with numerous startups emerging with new technologies and advanced methods such as data analytics, machine learning and satellite imaging

Agritech in India has seen a skyrocketing growth with numerous startups emerging with new technologies and advanced methods such as data analytics, machine learning and satellite imaging, among others to cater to the needs of Indian farmers and maximise their output. India with 118.7 million farmer households, accounting for more than half of the population is heavily dependent on agriculture as a primary source of income. But Indian agriculture is plagued by several problems both man made and natural such as; unavailability of seeds, small and fragmented land-holdings, problems with irrigation due to uncertain monsoon, shortage of finance among other necessities, leaving farmers helpless and with no option but to let their produce go at dirt cheap prices.

Therefore, Agritech is clearly one of the most needed industries in India and here is a list of top 9 agritech startups helping Indian farmers by providing agronomic intelligence.

1. Gramophone 
The company is an Intelligent Farming Platform providing Agronomic Intelligence to more than 550,000 farmers. Started in 2016 by Nishant Vats and Tauseef Khan, Gramophone is a one-stop e-commerce platform for farmers delivering agricultural inputs in more than 10,000 villages.

Gramophone provides end-to-end solutions and services to the farming community in India enabling them to increase their income by giving them the right advice to go to the right market to sell the right products. Their services range from Super SafalProgram providing farmers assistance for their crops from the scratch till the end of the harvest such as information about the seeds, required pesticides and crop nutrition, to SamridhiKit, which is a natural kit containing all the microorganisms helping farmers with the nourishment of their soil. Gramophone has also set up Gram Uday centres in villages in order to support the disrupted rural supply chain. Over three rounds, the company has raised a total of US$ 6 million in funding.

2. CropIn
CropIn is an intuitive, intelligent, self-evolving system that delivers future-ready farming solutions to the entire agriculture sector. They deliver decision-making tools that bring consistency, dependability and sustainability to agribusinesses. With capabilities of live reporting, analysis, interpretation and insight that span across geographies, CropIn is digitising every farm, while data-managing the entire ecosystem. Their smart agri solutions are powered in real-time; for farmers to archive patterns, predict trends, to make a blueprint for farmers’ business in the times to come.

3. Ekgaon
Ekgaon services have enriched lives of over a million rural households in India alone over the past 13 years of efforts. Ekgaon is a unique ‘For Profit’ social enterprise focussed on providing utility services for farmers, rural businesses, under-served rural women and the large urban migrant labour population of aspiring consumer. It is the first company to provide mobile phone enabled financial services delivery platform in South Asia. Its market connect platform ekgaon.com provides high quality ‘Direct from Farm Produce‘ that is healthy, organic certified and naturally grown from farms of small farmers to urban customers. The ekgaon One Village One World Network is a platform for leveraging mobile communication technology for encouraging sustainable development of women-self-help-groups (SHGs) and small farmers across India. The platform has over 900,000 women and 300,000 farmers spread across villages of India.

4. RML
Incorporated in 2006, RML Information Services, formerly known as Reuters Market Light (RML) provides cutting edge Data Analytics and Information in the agriculture sector that has a huge impact on the entire agriculture value chain. It focuses on making agriculture practices efficient, sustainable and profitable.

RML is a pioneer in providing farmers, a bouquet of information and communications technology (ICT) solutions by harnessing digital technology. These services aid in raising their agricultural productivity, improving profitability and bridging the gap between them and the agricultural experts.

RML solutions are powered by combining digital technology and RML’s hyperlocal full-time agriculture and content experts, who are connected with thousands of local, regional and national agriculture experts and market participants. With a data library and analytical coverage of more than 450 crop varieties and 1,300 markets, RML has been a choice for over 1.7 million farmers, in 50,000 villages, across 18 states in India.

5. Fasal
Founded by Shailendra Tiwari and Ananda Verma, Fasal helps farmers through its AI-powered platform which captures data on growing conditions real-time from on-farm sensors and delivers advisories on farm-specific, crop-specific actions to farmers via mobile in their native languages. Fasal is driven by innovation. And they are on the quest to make precision agriculture accessible.

6. Bijak
Gurugram-based Bijak is helping rural traders and buyers with its digital e-commerce platform, It has created an electronic -marketplace for agricultural goods and commodities that connects thousands of farmers, traders and wholesalers. Currently, there are 30,000 active buyers and traders on the platform.

7. DeHaat
DeHaat is one of the fastest-growing start-ups in Agritech sector providing end-to-end solutions and services to the farmers in India. Currently, they are operating in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Odisha with 265,000 farmers in their service network with a goal to cater services to five million farmers by 2024. They are offering farmers a one-stop solution on crops to grow, how to grow and where to sell the products under one roof in an accessible and affordable way.

8. FreshoKartz
Founded in 2016, FreshoKartz Agri Products provides technology-enabled services to small and marginal farmers including agricultural inputs, crop advisory, output linkages, crop insurance and financing to optimise a currently inefficient agriculture supply chain while enhancing price realisation by farmers.

Working with more than 90,000 farmers in Rajasthan, the agritech start-up has target to reach 10 lakh farmers in the next 12 to 15 months. It is working with more than 100 agri input companies including UPL, Chambal Fertilizers to provide best agri inputs to farmers’ doorsteps. FreshoKartz has developed mobile app where farmers can place orders from nearby centers. The business model has been built bottom-up where most of the team comes from farming background and are providing solutions to the farm level pain points of the farmers.

9. FarmERP
FarmERP’s main focus lies in rigorous technology-intensive transformation of agriculture and agribusinesses through latest advancements including Internet of Agricultural Things, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and Machine Learning. FarmERP caters not only to the consumers’ perspective, but majorly focuses on the benefit of the farmers as well. The organisation functions on four main pillars- sustainability, food safety, climate resilience and traceability.

Farmers in India face a majority of issues in two areas: productivity and market linkage. They do not have a knowledge of where to sell their products, and who would give them the right value for it. FarmERP comes into play here, and the agritech startup helps them get in touch with buyers, contract farming companies and stakeholders with a relative ease in the process. The ultimate goal is to increase the efficiency of the supply chain and thus increase productivity and empower these farmers.

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