Govt Likely To Allocate Funds To Support Agri Startups

The Centre is planning to launch funds to offer low-interest credit and tax incentives to agritech startups in the forthcoming budget.

Besides, the Indian government will also support startups working in varied sectors including AI, ML, remote sensing, big data, blockchain, IoT, geographic information system technology and dronetech that would help transform the country’s agricultural sector.

According to the Economic Times report quoted sources saying, “These agritech startups can build a more resilient agricultural ecosystem, support farmers with small holdings and impart knowledge about best practices. Therefore, they need to be encouraged.”

Further, the government also looks to form policies to offer incentives to agricultural space that will be utilised for building facilities such as micro-cold storages and addressing supply chain problems such as increased wastage, inadequate logistics, lack of infrastructure, among others.

The above moves are part of the Centre’s push to develop agriculture and related sectors and consequently improve yield, quality, profitability and efficiency of the said sectors.

It has been observed that the Centre-led ‘Innovation and Agri-entrepreneurship Development Programme’ has infused a total of INR 118.65 Cr in nearly 800 startups that are shoring up the agriculture space of the country. These startups are mainly working in the field of AI, IoT, blockchain and information and communication technology.

The development comes a month after the Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar launched INR 500 Cr agritech-focused accelerator programme for Indian startups.

Besides, the minister shared other initiatives including specified committee, division and panel for agritech startups, a single-window clearance platform for agritech players, creation of a marketing linkage platform to connect with agriculture space, forming a database of agritech startups and organising agritech conclaves formed by the Centre to uplift agriculture sector.

He further informed that the country is presently home to more than 2000 agritech startups and aims to increase the number of startups to 10K in near future.

Last month, it was announced that the Centre infused INR 6.25 Cr in 66 homegrown agritech startups to incentivise the consumption of millets in the nation. Alongside this, another 25 agritech startups were also shortlisted for funding by the central government. 

According to an Inc42 report, India’s agritech sector is anticipated to become a $24.1 Bn space by 2025. Meanwhile, a Bain & Co report estimated that the country’s agritech space will cross the $35 Bn mark by 2025.