India is an agriculture based country with almost 119 million farmers which accounts for more than half of its population. Agriculture being the primary source of income in the country, the farming community is one of the worst hit due to the pandemic, with issues like severe disruptions in the trade finance, farm produce – supply chain and closing down of the local mandis, markets, and transport facilities.
We have curated the list of 5 Agri-tech platforms which are helping the farmers to connect with the buyers, through retailers, ecommerce, and even by directly selling the produce to consumers and keep the supply chain functional throughout the pandemic and now on the path of recovery.
Origo Commodities – is India’s leading Agritech commodity financing platform, creating a positive impact on the planet and agri ecosystem. Origo aims to redefine traditional modes of procurement, handling, preserving, storing and financing farm produce, which had been largely ignored by the agri markets. Over a decade, Origo has expanded pan-India, with 500 warehouses operating across 12 states in the country. The primary focus of the business has been on creating financing and supply chain solutions. Origo has become the largest service provider to the government with its warehousing capability and network, and is also spearheading a technological transformation in agri supply chain financing through its flagship agri-trade finance platform, TradeFi. Origo operates in 4 areas – Agri-tech, Climate and sustainability, Tradefinance & Blockchain. It has been responsible for facilitating storage of over 23 million metric tonnes, reducing post-harvest losses by 5 percent, providing additional food security to over 1 million people. Origo has been helping Farmers in price discovery and market linkages.
AgriBazaar – As a full-stack agritech player, AgriBazaar has replicated the physical mandi (marketplace) to an e-mandi aggregator model, through which once a farmer registers and uploads his produce, buyers can place orders for the purchase. Once the deal is complete, AgriBazaar facilitates the logistics of picking up the produce from the farmer’s doorsteps and delivering it to the buyers’ warehouse. AgriBazaar also helps buyers – from MNCs to small-scale industries – with better price discovery, and sellers with more targeted marketing of their produce. It charges a transaction fee from buyers, while farmers can sell their produce at no additional cost.
SatSure – SatSure has been at the forefront of bringing the best practices of satellite image processing, big data capabilities, and IT to agriculture. It also strives to create a positive impact on the lives of farmers by helping improve crop insurance, innovate on agri lending services, and improve market linkages by creating intervention and decision intelligence frameworks for agri value chain stakeholders. It has mobile app platforms for delivering information on supply statistics of crops and crop stressing in their region. This helps with the decisions on what to sow, when to irrigate or add fertilizers, or prepare for harvest. Large banks and insurance companies in India are also leveraging SatSure’s solutions.
NinjaCart – NinjaCart is an Agri-marketing platform that helps farmers to sell their produce directly to retailers and restaurants. This helps both farmers and the consumers directly as the farmers can get better prices for their crops and there is a constant supply for the consumers as well. NinjaCart’s goal is to make a strong local farmer network and expand its operations. Ninjacart furthered its vision of, ‘Safe food for billion people’ with its first set of residue-free tomatoes, produced in partnership with agri-tech platform Kilofarms.
Unnati – Unnati is a new-age fintech company offering farming lifecycle support to farmers across the country. Driven by data, the brand helps convert farmers into entrepreneurs by hand holding them through every stage of the farming cycle with services such as working capital, purchasing the right seeds, nutrients and pesticides for crops, harvesting, and selling the crops. Unnati’s app gives access to agri finance, knowledge support, choice of inputs, tracking farm lifecycle and access to buyers.
