Agritech Enablers Private Limited, a company incorporated to facilitate technology adoption by India’s tech-starved small and marginal farmers has announced plans to comprehensively tech-enable 50,000 small and marginal farmers across India in the next five years.
“We have a vision to enable technology to make a significant impact on the lives of small and marginal farmers. We are all passionate about the cause and are committed to help build world-class agripreneurs,” said Vijay Pahwa, Chairman, Agritech Enablers, a 50-year marketing veteran of tyre and petroleum industries and Director of National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC).
“Enablement of India’s 127 million small and marginal farmers whose average farmland is just 1.5 acres and agri income is Rs. 3,140 per month, who supports nearly 625 million family members, will galvanize India’s rural and national economy and will generate unprecedented wealth for all the stakeholders,” says Ranjiv Singh Dalal, Vice Chairman, Agritech Enablers, an accomplished public administrator for 38 years and ex-Director General of Police, Haryana.
“We will enable cutting edge agritech like precision drip irrigation, polyhouses, precision farming based on IoT/ML and AI, post-harvesting solutions, complete automation of business processes, robust world-class farm processes and comprehensive world-class quality management systems. All of these measures will help increase revenue manifold, reduce costs manifold and help build world-class agripreneurs. The business case is very appealing,” says Sanjay Vidyarthi, Managing Director and CEO, Agritech Enablers, a 33-year veteran of IT, Telecom and Services industries across the globe, who has been working pro bono with the farmers for over two years.
Over the next three years, Agritech Enablers will be developing 1,000 polyhouses and 2,500 hectares of open farm with comprehensive technology intervention. The Business Model of Agritech Enablers is based on Revenue/Crop/Profit Share with the farmer. Partnering farmers will also get an assured compensation equivalent to her/his current earnings from the farm.
Agritech Enablers is currently developing a Proof of Concept (PoC) at a 3-acre (1.2 hectare) farm at Bhondsi (Gurgaon) that includes a 4,000 square meter polyhouse and an 8,000 square meter open farm to deploy appropriate agri technologies, deploy comprehensive automation, establish crop and farm planning, processes, systems, quality management, operations management and establish market linkages. The first yields are expected from December 2020.
Agritech Enablers intends to help build replicable, scalable, and sustainable models for the farmers that can be forklifted for implementation across India.
