Agritech is a term that refers to the use of modern technologies to enhance the efficiency and productivity of agriculture. Agritech in India is a booming sector, with over 1300 startups offering solutions such as agriculture marketplaces, crop storage, and logistics services. Using various technologies, you also find agronomy advisory services and Indian farm mechanization.
On the other hand, Indian farmers are also getting advanced as they are aware of various technologies and tools used in farming. Today, Indian farmers prefer to buy seeds and farming equipment online from trusted agriculture marketplace of India such as BadiKheti. With this pace of awareness among Indian farmers, agritech or agrotech is surely expected to open doors of enormous opportunities in Indian agricultural practice.
Agritech’s potential in India
Agritech in India has a market potential of US$24 billion by 2025, according to a report by EY. Agritech in India is also supported by the government through various initiatives and policies, such as the Startup India program and the digital agriculture scheme. Indian agritech sector aims to transform the traditional agriculture value chain and improve the livelihoods of millions of Indian farmers.
What is food traceability?
On the other hand, food traceability is the ability to track the origin, history, and destination of food products throughout the supply chain. It is important for farm-to-fork because it ensures food safety, quality, and authenticity.
Food Traceability can help prevent food fraud, by means of contamination and waste; as a result, it can improve consumer trust and satisfaction. It also supports sustainability and social responsibility as it reduces the environmental impact and promotes fair trade practices of food production and consumption.
The role of agrotech in enhancing food traceability
Food traceability through technology is the ability to track everything about food products along the supply chain. It can help ensure food care by preventing any malpractice to ultimately build consumer trust. Technology can enable food traceability by using methods such as barcodes, QR codes, blockchains, RFID tags, or sensors.
Agritech methods can provide information about food items for their origin/location, ideal temperature, and humidity. Thus, it is possible to trace the freshness of food items at different stages of production such as processing, distribution, and consumption.
Here are the benefits of agritech in food traceability in detail:
Enables farmers to record and share data
Agritech is used to improve Indian agricultural productivity and sustainability. One of the benefits of agritech is that it enables Indian farmers to record and share data on various aspects of the following farming activities:
- soil health
- crop yield
- weather conditions
- pest infestation
- water management
- market prices, etc.
This data can help Indian farmers make informed decisions, optimize their resources, reduce risks, and increase their income. It can also help them connect with farmers, experts, and buyers from across the world to share or access relevant information and agricultural services. Ultimately, using agricultural technology, we can enhance the livelihoods and resilience of Indian farmers.
Provides consumers with access to information
Another benefit of agritech is that it provides consumers with much-required information on the food’s origin, history, and safety. Various technologies in the food industry are used for tracing food products from farm to table through blockchain, sensors, and QR codes. This can help consumers be assured of what they consume by avoiding contaminated products.
Agritech can also empower consumers to make informed choices about their food consumption as it provides them with data on the environmental and social impact of their food purchases. Agritech can thus enhance consumer trust and satisfaction in the food system.
Improved transparency and accountability of stakeholders
Agritech is the use of technology to enhance the efficiency and quality of agriculture and food systems. It can assure improved transparency and accountability of food processors, distributors, and retailers by enabling data collection, analysis, and sharing throughout the supply chain. For example, agritech can help track the origin, safety, and environmental impact of food products, as well as monitor the performance, compliance, and feedback of food actors.
Agritech can also facilitate communication and collaboration among food stakeholders, as well as empower consumers to make informed choices. By leveraging agritech, food processors, distributors, and retailers can improve their trustworthiness, reputation, and competitiveness in the market.
Reduced food waste and losses
Agritech is the application of technology to improve the efficiency and sustainability of agriculture. One of the benefits of agritech is that it helps reduce food waste and losses by optimizing the logistics and storage of food products. For example, agritech can use predictive analytics, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing to forecast demand and supply, monitor crop quality and freshness, track inventory and transportation, and optimize storage conditions.
By doing so, agritech can help farmers, distributors, retailers, and consumers reduce food waste and losses along the value chain, and ensure food security and safety.
Enhanced food safety and quality standards
Agritech helps enhance food safety and quality standards through biotechnology and nanotechnology. Various biosensors are used to trace and avoid food contamination, adulteration, and spoilage. Biotechnology also involves the practice of living organisms or their products to alter or improve food quality such as nutritional value, shelf life, or immunity to microorganisms.
Indian agritech also involves nanotechnology meant to manipulate matters at the molecular or atomic level to produce more durable and robust materials to ultimately improve food quality. Furthermore, biosensors in Indian agritech are devices that facilitate measuring biological or chemical properties of food such as pH, temperature, moisture, pathogens, toxins, or allergens. By using these technologies, agritech can help ensure that food is safe, healthy, and fresh for end customers.
Blockchain agritech in Indian farming
Blockchain agritech is the application of blockchain technology to improve the efficiency, transparency, and traceability of the agricultural supply chain in India. Blockchain agritech can help farmers, consumers, agro-stakeholders, and government agencies to overcome the challenges of food safety, quality, fraud, wastage, and intermediation. Some of the benefits of blockchain agritech are:
- It can enable farmers to access reliable information about seeds, crop nutrition, crop protection, farm equipment, credit, and insurance through a decentralized and secure platform.
- It can allow consumers to verify the origin, authenticity, and quality of the food products they buy by scanning a QR code or a smart label that contains the product’s history and attributes.
- It can facilitate agro-stakeholders to collaborate and coordinate with each other through smart contracts that automate transactions and enforce agreements without intermediaries.
- It can assist government agencies to monitor and regulate the agricultural sector through real-time data and analytics that can improve policy-making and compliance.
The future is bright with Indian agritech
Agritech and blockchain technology for Indian agricultural practice have a good potential to bring significant reformation in the sector. Agrotech in Indian farming can be a game-changer for agriculture in India with improved government regulation and well-built trust among agro-stakeholders.
Nevertheless, it is also important to have good awareness or education for Indian farmers facilitated with state-of-the-art Indian agriculture marketplace infrastructure and connectivity. Through agritech, it will be possible to have unified standardization in Indian farming practices.
