Technology applications in Agriculture and Animal husbandry sector
Dr.T.P.Sethumadhavan
Recent CII study reveals that 30
percent of agriculture enterprises are running on profit, 35 percent at
breakeven level and rest 35 percent activities are at loss. But Covid 19 disruptions
have created new opportunities in agriculture and allied sectors. MSME sector
which has been badly affected by Covid crisis is trying to promote agribusiness
and agri industrial sector in the country.
But this sector need location specificity and market centered production
strategies. Appropriate market linkage is necessary for making the agriculture
operations viable and sustainable. Moreover it requires good agricultural
practices, technology and micro irrigation methods. Technology applications can
be used very effectively for increasing production, productivity, reducing cost
of production, maintaining quality and facilitating marketing in agriculture,
animal husbandry, dairying and food processing sectors. Technologies can make
convergence with Agriculture infrastructure fund animal husbandry
infrastructure development fund and cold chain projects in food processing
launched by Govt of India.
Farmer producer
organizations can use digitalization very effectively for farmer
advisory services, farmer applications, crop specific or customized advisories,
test application softwares, market forecasting and controlled approach on farm
practices. Technology applications facilitate monitoring the crop moisture
content, optimizing the yield and market linkage. Agri innovations,
Entrepreneurship and technology need to be promoted so as to improve production
and productivity. Precision farming
methods would pave way for optimizing cost of production and productivity. Post
Covid phase will witness substantial changes in way of life, market, emergence
of disruption technologies and consumer preference. New age innovations,
agriculture sector skills and technologies will position the sector on par with
the global standards. Technologies like block chain technology and internet of
things will facilitate to address productivity, traceability and food safety
related issues. In the era where consumer preference towards organic and
natural products are increasing, block chain technologies will facilitate to
address residue monitoring and export standards.
Precision farming with soil
testing-based decisions and automation using artificial intelligence will be
focused for precise application inputs in agriculture. Sensors and
drones will be used for precision, quality, environment in cost effective
manner. Small and marginal farmers started using these technologies with the
help of private players, government or farmer producer organizations.
Use of GPS technology, drones, robots etc controlled by smart phones,
tabs, etc can make life of farmers easy and exciting with good results. These
advanced devices will make agriculture more sustainable.
Nanotechnology can be used for augmenting
food quality and safety. Nano materials in agriculture will reduce the wastage while
using chemicals (nano fertilizers), minimize nutrient losses and will be used
to increase yield through pest and nutrient management. . India has improved
remarkably in digital connectivity and market access has become very easy. The
number of internet users is projected to reach 50 percent of the population by
2025. Farmers are using their smart phones agri extension and direct money transfer. There will be use of satellites, Internet of
things (IoT), sensors, drones, etc for better collection of data on soil
health, crop area and yield. Recent study reveals that over 90 per cent of
kirana stores across the country will be digitalized by 2025 with modern
traceable logistics and transparent supply chain.
How
technology is changing the sector?
With the increasing digitalization
in India, today technology can address most of the challenges that farmers face
including soil issues, climate, irrigation, to supply chain gaps. It can help
them predict weather patterns more accurately, adopt more sustainable
irrigation practices, reduce wastage and, in turn, enjoy better yields and
higher incomes. Farmers can use their smart phones to receive timely updates,
relevant information and monitor their crops. More farmers are beginning to
understand how leveraging solutions that use the latest technologies such as
Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and Cloud offers them
greater climate resilience, higher crop yield and better price control.
Smart farming that uses modern
digital technologies such as sensors, location data derived from GPS and
satellites, robotics and analytics is changing the face of agriculture in
India.AI can help farmers predict weather patterns. Big Data helps improve the
yield, reduces risk, and increases efficiency. With the right data, farmers
will be able to take timely decisions, on crop management.
Block
chain technologies in Agriculture & Animal husbandry
In the agriculture and allied sectors,
self-executing smart contracts together with automated payments are poised to
be a game changer. The role of smart contracts especially in agricultural
insurance, green bonds and traceability is going to be very effective. Block chain
technology will facilitate enhanced data management capabilities which could
create supply chain efficiencies and reduce conflicts in transactions. The
agriculture sector stands to benefit from the technology’s potential to lower
transaction costs, optimize logistics, increase traceability, and enhance food
safety protocols.
Commodity buyers can directly
interact with the supplier to speed up the process and reduces time to settle the
payment. Moreover
companies can save on additional agent fees and farmers can receive a larger
share of sales directly with a block chain based solutions. With the
features like traceability and accountability, farmers can directly sell crops or
food to the market without the intervention of intermediaries. Implementing
block chain
for
logistics can go a long way in simplifying deliveries. With smart contracts,
farmers will be free from the long chains of intermediaries. Smart contracts
will eliminate unnecessary delay and ensure farmers get paid for their product
on time. With the help of smart farming, IoT sensors could fetch important
information like the temperature of the soil, water level, fertilizer details
and more and send it to the block chain. Based on the data saved in block chain,
smart contracts could trigger and execute the specific actions. It will help in
enhancing the quality of the farming process as well as the farmer produce. Block
chain applications will facilitate to trade the agricultural wastes including
animal wastes, energy, and byproducts among the farmers and entrepreneurs to
generate wealth; to manage the animal product supply chains such as dairy
products, beef, and chicken to enhance their safety and traceability Block
chain applications will facilitate to trade the agricultural wastes including
animal wastes, energy, and byproducts among the farmers and entrepreneurs to
generate wealth; to manage the animal product supply chains such as dairy
products, beef, and chicken to enhance their safety and traceability
Applications of the block chain
technology in the livestock sector will facilitate to manage various input
supply chains, such as animal feed, de-wormers, medicines, and vaccines, among
others; integration of feed composition and environmental footprint databases;
and sustainability and technology outreach platforms.
Technology
intervention model in agriculture through FPOs
Objectives
§
Multiplying
the farmer income irrespective of the season.
§
Minimizing
food wastage during transit from farm to consumer.
§
Quality
delivery of Fruits, vegetables and Horticultural Produce.
§
Cost
optimization using an efficient integrated supply chain with the help of
advanced technology enabling transit of farm produce straight to institutions
§
Throughout
the supply chain, perishable goods need to be kept under appropriate
temperature conditions in order to avoid spoilage.
Concept Summary
The proposed “Farm to Institutions through
FPOs model is a transformative real-time agri marketplace platform between FPOs
and end users including hotels, hospitals etc. This platform will act as a
supply side aggregator as well as demand side aggregator by adopting new
business models and technologies
The model will bring a disruptive
transformation in business models within the agriculture and animal husbandry
sectors in terms of real-time supply-demand visibility, supply chain
intelligence, new models of pricing and advanced concepts like forward
contracts and future trading which will facilitate farmers to increase
profitability.
Background
Indian economy is poised to break the US
$10.4 Trillion mark by 2034. This will be marked by the rise of elite and affluent
households with high increase in consumption and earning. There will also be
rapid adoption of digital technologies by the consumers and various sectors.
Further, this model will give new levels
of transformative value creation to all the stakeholders identical to Uber, Ola
in ride sharing space and BigBasket, Grofers in the e-commerce space.
Issues in current
system
The farmers
lacking the facility are forced to sell off their produce at whatever price is
being offered. Poor transportation facilities compound to the problem by
raising cost and wastages.
§
Poor
Transportation Facility
§
Lack
of Cold Storage/Warehousing Facilities
§
Inadequate/Insufficient
Capacity
§
Improper
Cold Chain management
§
Irregular
Power Supply
§
Poor
Cold Chain Technology
§
Poor
Structure
§
Poor
Cold Storage Network
1.
Solution: Co-operative to Institution Agri-tech Model
The Operating Model
Prototype workflow of Agri-Tech is described below:
§
Cater the consumer
demand for fresh food products
§
Transparency shown
about where food comes from
§
Mechanisms to trace
the path of food from the fields to the point of purchase or table
§
Data driven model
based on the ‘Fresh Index’ of a perishable good from the farm till it reaches different consumer
segments
§
Optimize the entire
supply chain by real-time monitoring
§ The sensors which are placed for ease of tracking
Benefits
|
Benefits |
Current Approach |
Agri-Tech Approach |
|
Farmers |
Regular Income
Unpredictability Minimum access
to technology |
• Regular
income and wide market reach for their produce • Technology
enhancement for farmer realization |
|
FPOs |
Coordination of
Farm to Institution |
• Technology
enhancement to reach out farmers and institutions for providing advanced
service • Facilitate
Exports |
|
Organized
Supply Chain Management |
No regular flow
of process and connectivity between various departments |
• Facilitate
more organized employment • Digitization
transparency between various departments from logistics to storage then
finally to end customers |
2. Business Model and Approach
§ Proposed
Business Model Canvas - FPOs to Institutions Agri – Tech Model
The proposed
model is a Mobile driven business model that enhances the usage, efficiency and
convenience of a co-operative to create a technology driven co-operative to
business model.
Technology applications in
Agriculture and Animal husbandry sector
Dr.T.P.Sethumadhavan
Recent CII study reveals that 30
percent of agriculture enterprises are running on profit, 35 percent at
breakeven level and rest 35 percent activities are at loss. But Covid 19 disruptions
have created new opportunities in agriculture and allied sectors. MSME sector
which has been badly affected by Covid crisis is trying to promote agribusiness
and agri industrial sector in the country.
But this sector need location specificity and market centered production
strategies. Appropriate market linkage is necessary for making the agriculture
operations viable and sustainable. Moreover it requires good agricultural
practices, technology and micro irrigation methods. Technology applications can
be used very effectively for increasing production, productivity, reducing cost
of production, maintaining quality and facilitating marketing in agriculture,
animal husbandry, dairying and food processing sectors. Technologies can make
convergence with Agriculture infrastructure fund animal husbandry
infrastructure development fund and cold chain projects in food processing
launched by Govt of India.
Farmer producer
organizations can use digitalization very effectively for farmer
advisory services, farmer applications, crop specific or customized advisories,
test application softwares, market forecasting and controlled approach on farm
practices. Technology applications facilitate monitoring the crop moisture
content, optimizing the yield and market linkage. Agri innovations,
Entrepreneurship and technology need to be promoted so as to improve production
and productivity. Precision farming
methods would pave way for optimizing cost of production and productivity. Post
Covid phase will witness substantial changes in way of life, market, emergence
of disruption technologies and consumer preference. New age innovations,
agriculture sector skills and technologies will position the sector on par with
the global standards. Technologies like block chain technology and internet of
things will facilitate to address productivity, traceability and food safety
related issues. In the era where consumer preference towards organic and
natural products are increasing, block chain technologies will facilitate to
address residue monitoring and export standards.
Precision farming with soil
testing-based decisions and automation using artificial intelligence will be
focused for precise application inputs in agriculture. Sensors and
drones will be used for precision, quality, environment in cost effective
manner. Small and marginal farmers started using these technologies with the
help of private players, government or farmer producer organizations.
Use of GPS technology, drones, robots etc controlled by smart phones,
tabs, etc can make life of farmers easy and exciting with good results. These
advanced devices will make agriculture more sustainable.
Nanotechnology can be used for augmenting
food quality and safety. Nano materials in agriculture will reduce the wastage while
using chemicals (nano fertilizers), minimize nutrient losses and will be used
to increase yield through pest and nutrient management. . India has improved
remarkably in digital connectivity and market access has become very easy. The
number of internet users is projected to reach 50 percent of the population by
2025. Farmers are using their smart phones agri extension and direct money transfer. There will be use of satellites, Internet of
things (IoT), sensors, drones, etc for better collection of data on soil
health, crop area and yield. Recent study reveals that over 90 per cent of
kirana stores across the country will be digitalized by 2025 with modern
traceable logistics and transparent supply chain.
How
technology is changing the sector?
With the increasing digitalization
in India, today technology can address most of the challenges that farmers face
including soil issues, climate, irrigation, to supply chain gaps. It can help
them predict weather patterns more accurately, adopt more sustainable
irrigation practices, reduce wastage and, in turn, enjoy better yields and
higher incomes. Farmers can use their smart phones to receive timely updates,
relevant information and monitor their crops. More farmers are beginning to
understand how leveraging solutions that use the latest technologies such as
Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and Cloud offers them
greater climate resilience, higher crop yield and better price control.
Smart farming that uses modern
digital technologies such as sensors, location data derived from GPS and
satellites, robotics and analytics is changing the face of agriculture in
India.AI can help farmers predict weather patterns. Big Data helps improve the
yield, reduces risk, and increases efficiency. With the right data, farmers
will be able to take timely decisions, on crop management.
Block
chain technologies in Agriculture & Animal husbandry
In the agriculture and allied sectors,
self-executing smart contracts together with automated payments are poised to
be a game changer. The role of smart contracts especially in agricultural
insurance, green bonds and traceability is going to be very effective. Block chain
technology will facilitate enhanced data management capabilities which could
create supply chain efficiencies and reduce conflicts in transactions. The
agriculture sector stands to benefit from the technology’s potential to lower
transaction costs, optimize logistics, increase traceability, and enhance food
safety protocols.
Commodity buyers can directly
interact with the supplier to speed up the process and reduces time to settle the
payment. Moreover
companies can save on additional agent fees and farmers can receive a larger
share of sales directly with a block chain based solutions. With the
features like traceability and accountability, farmers can directly sell crops or
food to the market without the intervention of intermediaries. Implementing
block chain
for
logistics can go a long way in simplifying deliveries. With smart contracts,
farmers will be free from the long chains of intermediaries. Smart contracts
will eliminate unnecessary delay and ensure farmers get paid for their product
on time. With the help of smart farming, IoT sensors could fetch important
information like the temperature of the soil, water level, fertilizer details
and more and send it to the block chain. Based on the data saved in block chain,
smart contracts could trigger and execute the specific actions. It will help in
enhancing the quality of the farming process as well as the farmer produce. Block
chain applications will facilitate to trade the agricultural wastes including
animal wastes, energy, and byproducts among the farmers and entrepreneurs to
generate wealth; to manage the animal product supply chains such as dairy
products, beef, and chicken to enhance their safety and traceability Block
chain applications will facilitate to trade the agricultural wastes including
animal wastes, energy, and byproducts among the farmers and entrepreneurs to
generate wealth; to manage the animal product supply chains such as dairy
products, beef, and chicken to enhance their safety and traceability
Applications of the block chain
technology in the livestock sector will facilitate to manage various input
supply chains, such as animal feed, de-wormers, medicines, and vaccines, among
others; integration of feed composition and environmental footprint databases;
and sustainability and technology outreach platforms.
Technology
intervention model in agriculture through FPOs
Objectives
§
Multiplying
the farmer income irrespective of the season.
§
Minimizing
food wastage during transit from farm to consumer.
§
Quality
delivery of Fruits, vegetables and Horticultural Produce.
§
Cost
optimization using an efficient integrated supply chain with the help of
advanced technology enabling transit of farm produce straight to institutions
§
Throughout
the supply chain, perishable goods need to be kept under appropriate
temperature conditions in order to avoid spoilage.
Concept Summary
The proposed “Farm to Institutions through
FPOs model is a transformative real-time agri marketplace platform between FPOs
and end users including hotels, hospitals etc. This platform will act as a
supply side aggregator as well as demand side aggregator by adopting new
business models and technologies
The model will bring a disruptive
transformation in business models within the agriculture and animal husbandry
sectors in terms of real-time supply-demand visibility, supply chain
intelligence, new models of pricing and advanced concepts like forward
contracts and future trading which will facilitate farmers to increase
profitability.
Background
Indian economy is poised to break the US
$10.4 Trillion mark by 2034. This will be marked by the rise of elite and affluent
households with high increase in consumption and earning. There will also be
rapid adoption of digital technologies by the consumers and various sectors.
Further, this model will give new levels
of transformative value creation to all the stakeholders identical to Uber, Ola
in ride sharing space and BigBasket, Grofers in the e-commerce space.
Issues in current
system
The farmers
lacking the facility are forced to sell off their produce at whatever price is
being offered. Poor transportation facilities compound to the problem by
raising cost and wastages.
§
Poor
Transportation Facility
§
Lack
of Cold Storage/Warehousing Facilities
§
Inadequate/Insufficient
Capacity
§
Improper
Cold Chain management
§
Irregular
Power Supply
§
Poor
Cold Chain Technology
§
Poor
Structure
§
Poor
Cold Storage Network
1.
Solution: Co-operative to Institution Agri-tech Model
The Operating Model
Prototype workflow of Agri-Tech is described below:
§
Cater the consumer
demand for fresh food products
§
Transparency shown
about where food comes from
§
Mechanisms to trace
the path of food from the fields to the point of purchase or table
§
Data driven model
based on the ‘Fresh Index’ of a perishable good from the farm till it reaches different consumer
segments
§
Optimize the entire
supply chain by real-time monitoring
§ The sensors which are placed for ease of tracking
Benefits
|
Benefits |
Current Approach |
Agri-Tech Approach |
|
Farmers |
Regular Income
Unpredictability Minimum access
to technology |
• Regular
income and wide market reach for their produce • Technology
enhancement for farmer realization |
|
FPOs |
Coordination of
Farm to Institution |
• Technology
enhancement to reach out farmers and institutions for providing advanced
service • Facilitate
Exports |
|
Organized
Supply Chain Management |
No regular flow
of process and connectivity between various departments |
• Facilitate
more organized employment • Digitization
transparency between various departments from logistics to storage then
finally to end customers |
2. Business Model and Approach
§ Proposed
Business Model Canvas - FPOs to Institutions Agri – Tech Model
The proposed
model is a Mobile driven business model that enhances the usage, efficiency and
convenience of a co-operative to create a technology driven co-operative to
business model.
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