Taking technology to farmer collectives in India, the startup way

Eight ICRISAT-incubated startups recently showcased their technologies to support farm livelihoods as part of a larger effort to bridge the technology gap for farmer collectives. The Indian government’s Invest India, through the Accelerating Growth of New India’s Innovations (AGNIi) program and the National Association for Farmer Producer Organisations (NAFPO), is bringing FPOs and agri-tech startups together.

Incubated at the Agri-Business Incubator (ABI) and the iHub at ICRISAT, the startups recently showcased technology-backed solutions for Farmer Producer Organization (FPO) management systems, last-mile digital learning and extension services, personalized crop advisories and management, agribusiness convergence platforms, on-demand farm machinery and service management, optimized fertilizer application units to reduce input costs and impact on the environment, deep learning solutions for quality check at farm-gate and low-cost community-owned post-harvest processing units for value addition. The technologies and business ideas were presented through an online showcase event, which had 68 participants including Chief Executive Officers of FPOs, agencies promoting FPOs, civil society organizations, banking institutions and corporates from 17 states of India.