Amazon And Microsoft Swoop Into India $24 Billion Farm-Data Trove
Amazon and Microsoft Swoop Into India's $24 Billion Farm-Data Trove
Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp., and Cisco Systems Inc. are among the technology titans poised to harness data from Indian farmers as part of an ambitious government-led productivity initiative aimed at modernizing an aging agricultural industry.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's administration, which seeks to ensure food security in the world's second most populous country, signed preliminary agreements in April with three American titans and a large number of domestic firms to share agricultural statistics gathered since taking office in 2014. PM Modi is betting that the private sector can assist farmers in increasing their yields by developing applications and tools based on agricultural production, soil quality, and land ownership information.
The government announced this week that Jio Platforms Ltd., the company controlled by Reliance Industries Ltd. billionaire Mukesh Ambani, and tobacco giant ITC Ltd. have joined the program.
Prime Minister Modi intends to use this project to usher in long-awaited reforms to restructure an agricultural sector that employs nearly half of the country's 1.3 billion people and accounts for roughly a fifth of the country's third-largest economy. Asia. The government is banking on the project's success to boost rural incomes, decrease imports, eliminate some of the world's worst food waste through improved infrastructure, and eventually compete with exporters such as Brazil, the United States, and the United States. 'Union européenne.
A Blow to India's Agro-Tech industry
This is a blow to India's agro-tech industry, which Ernst & Young believes could reach around $ 24 billion in revenue by 2025, despite current penetration of less than 1%. It is also an opportunity to deploy networks, artificial intelligence, and machine learning in a developing country, while ensuring a constant flow of agricultural products could benefit e-commerce companies such as Amazon and Reliance. Assist in breaking into a grocery market that accounts for more than half of Indians' annual retail spending of $ 1 trillion.
“This is a high-impact industry, and private actors recognize the opportunity and desire to play a significant role,” said Ankur Pahwa, partner at EY India. “India suffers from a high rate of food waste as a result of a lack of technology and infrastructure. As a result, the program is extremely beneficial.”
The concept is straightforward: consolidate all relevant data, such as crop models, soil health, insurance, credit, and weather models, into a single database, and then analyze it using artificial intelligence and data analysis. Following that, the goal is to develop customized services for a sector that faces numerous challenges, including peak yields, water scarcity, soil degradation, and a lack of infrastructure, such as temperature-controlled warehouses and refrigerated trucks. . Under the terms of the agreement, large technology companies will assist the government in developing proof-of-concepts for farm-to-fork technology solutions that farmers can access directly. If this proves advantageous, the companies can sell the final product to the government as well as directly to the producers, extending the solutions to the national level.
The government has thus far made publicly available data on more than 50 million farmers out of 120 million land producers identified. Among the local companies that have signed up are Star Agribazaar Technology, ESRI India Technologies, yoga guru Baba Ramdev's Patanjali Organic Research Institute, and Ninjacart.
A wetter September would help India's rainfall deficit and ease inflation. A fruit and vegetable wholesale market in Guna, Madhya Pradesh, central India. The world's largest technology companies are lining up to harness agricultural data as part of an ambitious government-led productivity initiative aimed at modernizing an aging farming industry. Anindito Mukherjee / Bloomberg
However, success is far from certain. The plan to attract large businesses has already drawn criticism from critics, who argue that it is another attempt by the government to increase private sector influence, a development that could harm vulnerable small farmers.
The program may even exacerbate protracted protests that Prime Minister Modi's government has been battling for more than nine months after controversial new farm laws infuriated some farmers. With a critical statewide election scheduled for 2022, it may become more difficult to sell the government's technology plan to assist farming to an already skeptical farming community.
“With this data, they will be able to identify areas where the produce was substandard and will be able to purchase it cheaply from farmers in those areas and sell it outrageously elsewhere,” said Sukhwinder Singh Sabhra, a farmer in the northern state. Punjab, which has been protesting against new agricultural laws since November. “More than farmers, consumers will bear the brunt of this.
Apeksha Kaushik, senior analyst at Gartner, said that technology adoption is still in its infancy in India. “The scarcity of technological infrastructure and recurring natural disasters such as floods and droughts have also hampered the deployment of digital solutions,” she added.
Concerns about data privacy could pose another obstacle. Abhimanyu Kohar, a 27-year-old farmer leader who advocates for protesting farmers, described the situation as "serious." “We are all aware of the government's track record when it comes to data security,” he said.
Despite the roadblocks, a few one-year pro bono pilot programs have already begun.
Microsoft has identified 100 villages for the deployment of AI and machine learning
Microsoft has identified 100 villages for the deployment of AI and machine learning and the development of a platform. Amazon, which has already begun providing farmers with real-time advice and information via a mobile app, offers cloud computing services to solution providers. Microsoft and Amazon representatives in India did not respond to requests for comment.
Star Agribazaar, dubbed a "game changer" by co-founder Amit Mundawala, will collect data on farmland profiling, crop estimation, land degradation, and weather conditions. According to managing director Agendra Kumar, ESRI India generates data and builds applications using a geographic information system.
“Once you have data, you can correlate it with reality on the ground and improve your projections, make informed decisions, and determine which regions require political intervention,” said PK Joshi, former director for South Asia at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, D.C. . According to Rajeev Chawla, the state's additional chief secretary, a similar data-driven system implemented last year in the southern state of Karnataka has aided in increasing the efficiency of government benefit delivery. Certain bank loans have been made to farmers based on centralized data, and all government programs, including insurance, loan verification, and minimum support prices, are channeled through the mechanism, plugging leaks and eliminating fraud, he declared.
Apart from the tech titans, the program is likely to attract a large number of small businesses and startups. According to the report, when completed, the project will serve as the backbone of a national digital agriculture ecosystem, assisting farmers in increasing profitability through access to the right information at the right time and facilitating better planning and policy execution. the government's digital agriculture consultation paper.
“How this exercise will be implemented or whether it will result in increased production and farm income remains to be seen,” Madan Sabnavis, chief economist at Care Ratings Ltd., said.
