Ag Tech News: Startups Pave Way for Next-Generation Farming

Galuru: In rural Karnataka and India, smart phones and internet may not have penetrated much but that's not stopping a slew of startups in Bengaluru from offering next-gen farming tips, with the assistance of technology.

Startups seem to have an app for offering expert advice to farmers on crop and sowing pattern to solutions on how to harvest and maximize their yield. And what's more, the forecast for the apps seems to be quite promising.

CropIn, a five-year-old startup, has already started providing its applications for mostly Farmer Producer Organisations (FPO) and NGOs. This CropIn founded by Krishna Kumar and Kunal Prasad, CropIn also has big farming companies like Pepsico, McCain, Fieldfresh looking to it for solutions. Their technology uses data available from the grassroots level, including the soil content, annual rainfall, previous cropping pattern and the location of the farmland to provide concrete solutions, including weather forecasts and solutions to ensure minimal damages in case of natural calamities.

Krishna Kumar said "Our next goal is to ensure that farmers can directly start utilizing our platform for using it on their own land. Our platform will be available with best practices for farmers to use, based on their location, seed quality and land extent. At present the same system exists for large scale farmers in the country, and Karnataka."

"Agriculture is going to be completely technology-driven in the next five years, and we intend to be at the forefront of this revolution," said Kumar, while asked about their insight with regard to investing in the agriculture sector, by providing technology for farming.

Recalling an interaction with one of his agri-startup counterparts, Kumar said the company was already delivering pesticides and fertilizers to farmers on a missed call.

He said "The company representatives, in fact, have started using our platform for a better reach. It started off with farmers giving a missed call to the company, which in turn called back and secured the orders of pesticides and fertilizers and delivered it to their doorsteps. It is like the Flipkart of agriculture. This is the change which will soon grip the sector."

CropIn, which already has four offices in four different states and now is planning to expand to 10 states.
At the other end, Mandi Trades, an online portal that provides a forum for farmers to connect with traders to sell their produce, is fast becoming a major player in agriculture technology. Founder Edwin Varghese said there are only a handful of companies which are truly rooted in the agriculture sector.

The startups, however, believe there need to be sectoral reforms in agriculture. From relaxing regulations for sale of produce to ensuring that technology is available at the grassroots, people like Kumar and Varghese believe it is imperative for the government to intervene and ensure that "digital revolution" happens at a faster pace.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/