Agriculture 4.0: Reshaping India’s farming landscape through agri-digital technology

2023-08-29 13:17:50

India’s digital ecosystem is witnessing healthy tailwinds such as affordability and availability of high-speed internet and a maturing digital content ecosystem, experts participating in a roundtable discussion on agri-digital technology organised by the CII Maharashtra Taskforce on Agriculture in association with the S. P. Jain Institute of Management and Research have said.

The roundtable meeting, organised in Mumbai, said the confluence of these factors presents an exciting opportunity for innovation in the agricultural ecosystem, where market players can leverage next-generation technology such as data digitisation and data platforms, data analytics, AI, ML, the IoT, and Software as a Service (SaaS) to disrupt the status quo.

Sunil D. Gorantiwar, Director of Research and Principal Investigator CAAST, Mahatma Phule Krishi Vidyapeeth, Rahuri, said digital farming plays a vital role in understanding crop science and improving agronomic practices to yield better outputs. Scalable and cost-efficient solutions also facilitate large and medium enterprises to pass on a tried-and-tested package of practices to farmers, particularly in developing regions, to help them adopt more scientific farming methods.

Vilas Shinde, Convener, CII Maharashtra State Taskforce on Agriculture and Director, Sahyadri Farms Post Harvest Care Ltd highlighted that “the government’s aim of building a $5 trillion inclusive economy is only possible when agricultural infrastructure is improved through public and private investment to enable productivity, arrest wastage and enhance distribution.” Varun Nagaraj, Professor of Information Management and Analytics and Dean, SPJIMR, in his address, mentioned supporting the agri startups in a big way as they are the future of modernising and digitising the agriculture sector in India and take it up to the global level. He also mentioned the importance of the Indusry-Academia collaboration and this kind of sessions are very essential at every step of the way.

V Shankar, Executive-in-Residence, Centre for Innovation in Sustainable Development-(CISD), SPJIMR, highlighted the remarkable progress made in Agriculture since the Green Revolution and that now the focus is shifting to productivity and quality. Girish Chitale, Co-Convener, CII Maharashtra State Taskforce on Agriculture and Director, B G Chitale Dairies Pvt Ltd reiterated that the advent of Agriculture 4.0 has equipped food producers with an army of farm automation tools and data management solutions that empower them to boost resource and agricultural productivity.