How AgriTech startups are revolutionizing traditional practices, driving sustainable agriculture

Agriculture technology has become a prominent new avenue lately, bringing massive improvement in various stages of the agriculture value chain. The use of technology has become even more pronounced owing to the rapid digitalisation of agriculture and increasing digital penetration in rural India, the mainstay of agrarian sector.

In light of this, we have seen a surge of agritech startups that have become gateway to innovation showcasing a huge risk appetite to disrupt the traditional agriculture industry in a bid to bring in efficiency, cut down on institutional laggards, and raise the productivity level of farmers. All these factors play a very critical role at large to drive sustainable agriculture practices as well as improve economic prospects of both farmers and businesses. Such agritech companies have one thing in common as the coin-term suggests - leveraging modern agriculture technology.

Let’s start with IoT in agriculture. IoT refers to Internet-Of-Things that uses physical objects with sensor technology, processing ability, software, and other devices helping with the exchange of data among systems over the Internet. In the field of agriculture, it’s perceived as a sophisticated farming technology that can connect any physical object on a farm with internet – giving farmers real-time actionable intelligence. For instance, such technology would help with gathering insights on crops, soil, fields, livestock, storage facilities, or any object that influences production.

Infact, the scope of IoT goes well beyond this, one can also connect smart vehicles such as drones or even autonomous robots and actuators! For a farmer who has invested in IoT technology, he’d get access to data analytics and visualisations on crop health, weather prediction, fertiliser – that would nudge them to make smarter decisions and improve the quality of farm management. Such smart agriculture system using IoT has paved the way for sustainable farming, informing farmers about best practices to meet society’s present and growing needs pertaining to food systems.

Artificial intelligence (AI) too has become an advanced agriculture technology in recent times. Interestingly, artificial intelligence and machine learning (ML) technologies are leading the charge in revolutionizing traditional agriculture and facilitating the culture of IoT technology. AI combined with ML can improve crop yield with predictive analysis. Drone used in agriculture provides visual analytics data for surveillance purpose, and additionally can also be used for irrigation purpose.

Sustainable development has become a buzzword in modern times, often used by governments, corporates and civil societies in unison. However, companies are also being accused of mere greenwashing at the pretext of environmentalism. However, the rise of agritech startups have buttressed the importance of driving the world towards sustainable farming given that agriculture has an enormous environmental footprint, heavily contributing in causing climate change, water scarcity, water pollution, land degradation etc. Sustainable development in agriculture has also seeped into the minds of global leaders, multilateral organisations and governments.

Infact, sustainable agriculture is also envisioned as a sustainable development goal, referenced as SDG 2.4.1 that entails - By 2030, ensure sustainable food production systems and implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, that help maintain ecosystems, that strengthen capacity for adaptation to climate change, extreme weather, drought, flooding and other disasters and that progressively improve land and soil quality.

Agritech has bolsteredpractices of sustainable agriculture, supported by agri startups. It’s a ripe time to make course correction in traditional agriculture ensuring a roadmap towards efficiency and productivity and creating a conducive environment for businesses and farmers to grow.

Authored By: Rajesh Ranjan, Founder & CEO, Krishify