Charting the growth momentum of the post-harvest agtech industry this year

Even with staying the bedrock of civilization, the agriculture sector has remained tech-agnostic for a long time. However, with the pandemic accelerating technological innovation adoption in agriculture, agtech providers obtained a huge impetus to scale throughout meals worth chains. By harnessing new-age technologies, this kind of as artificial intelligence, large details analytics, equipment mastering, cloud computing, blockchain, IoT, among many others, agtech firms are plugging in structural gaps in the agriculture programs. Agtech businesses that are working on post-harvest methods use technological excellence to tackle meals quality evaluation challenges, logistical troubles, generate marketplace linkages, institute traceability remedies, leverage info prosperity for enterprise intelligence, establish chilly storage infrastructure, amid other people.

The 12 months 2021 was a bumper one particular for the agtech sector and 2022 is slated to be even bigger and bolder in comparison. As present agtech players scale their corporations and new players enter the fray, let us analyse the crucial things which will pave the way for the expansion of publish-harvest agtech corporations.

Authorities-led agtech improve

With the latest announcement of the Union Funds 2022, the governing administration has when all over again underlined an empowering vision for agriculture, and the agtech sector, with main emphasis on raising technological intervention across worth chains. The agriculture sector has chaptered a resilient recovery course of action, developing at 3.9 for each cent in FY 2021-22, an raise from 3.6 per cent last calendar year.

The government’s determination in direction of rising investment in agriculture and the agtech sector will help in all-inclusive and equitable advancement. Equally, the proposed PPP (Community Private Partnership) model scheme for the provision of digital and hello-tech providers throughout agriculture intersections will automatically make better collaboration among private agtech players and general public investigate establishments. Financial support from the govt will extend necessary momentum to encourage growth in the rural financial system and multiply the export likely of the country’s many agri-commodities.

Increase in investments

The year 2021 was a bountiful a person for agtech investments. As for every the information introduced by the Effects Investor Council, the year witnessed a continuous infusion of cash really worth more than $515 million into this burgeoning sector until Oct alone. It is envisioned that these expense valuations will double in 2022. In the final two a long time, agtech start out-ups have managed to give healthier returns to their investors, which has duly incremented the price of this rising sector by a appreciable notch. In 2022, funding benchmarks will keep on to evolve fervently with climbing valuations to travel big-scale transformations.

Surge in R&D

According to some studies, India’s total spending on agriculture R&D in the very last two a long time has been basically .3 – .5 for every cent of the overall agricultural GDP. In stark distinction, agtech leaders these as the US and China invest 2.8 for each cent and 2.1 for each cent, respectively. Without active expense in the R&D segment, equally from the private sector and govt institutions, the genuine likely of Indian agriculture will remain unfulfilled.

For occasion, in article-harvest agricultural trade, quality is the most essential value multiplier across meals value chains. It lies at the core of each transaction, majorly defining the rate realization. But the high quality evaluation stays issue to manual processes and faults that influence the benefit created. With a sizeable investment decision of time and means, AgNext innovated AI-enabled technologies to carry quick top quality evaluation methods to just about every node of the food items source chain. With speedy quality evaluation, we can root out inefficiencies in the foods source chain, lessen foodstuff wastage and make improvements to profitability for all agriculture stakeholders.

Technological interventions and advancement in our R&D prowess have the potential to circumvent the current banalities in the agriculture procedure by boosting innovation capabilities and automating agricultural operations by leveraging deep-tech solutions.

B2B electronic marketplaces for agri-trade

Digital B2B marketplaces have emerged as farm-to-business enterprise hotspots that could successfully permit agriculture transactions with marked transparency and traceability. With proven belief in the e-current market linkages, there will be a significant maximize in agricultural marketplaces, driven by each the demand from customers and offer aspect. Governmental interventions in digital marketplaces will also evolve, which will aid to increase the consciousness of this electronic company and also provide included legitimacy to the online trade and commerce in the agricultural sector.

What the Long term Holds

With the rising proliferation and adoption of future-gen technologies and innovative solutions across the agriculture value chain, the agtech business is on the brink of multi-billion dollar valuations, projected for the up coming handful of yrs. On the submit-harvest frontier, the futuristic tendencies contain but are not limited to, elevated digitalization of info, logistics, transactions, good quality assessments, processes, and all important metrics with actual-time information and facts to assistance crucial organization decisions.

(The author is CEO & Founder, AgNext Systems)

Published on


February 13, 2022