Agriculture has been one of the strongest drivers of innovation throughout human history. The onset of agriculture has been responsible for human civilization and remains a cornerstone for humanity’s continued survival and prosperity.
With a massive increase in the human population and environmental changes, innovations in the AgriTech space will be crucial for sustainable agricultural growth.
India has a storied history of pioneering innovations in agriculture, having spearheaded its own Green Revolution under M.S Swaminathan, dramatically impacting crop yields and resilience.
The AGNIi Mission is committed to scouting and nurturing promising AgriTech innovators, who can have a positive impact on the agriculture industry. AGNIi has successfully engaged with numerous startups and innovators in the agriculture and rural livelihood space.
The Indian agriculture is sector has its own challenges. The gaps in the ecosystem hinder local produce from going global. Kalgudi, a startup, has created a model to reduce these gaps and connect farmers, traders, input dealers, logistics providers, academia, institutional purchasers, POs, government departments, and consumers. Information, aid, advise, buy, sell, and service interactions occur between them as they solve one other's problems and benefit together. With AGNIi’s help, Kalgudi got opportunities to pitch their innovation to organisations such Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Digital Green and Common Service Centre amongst many other partners. This gave the startup an opportunity to scale its solutions through new partnership opportunities.
UNDP’s Secure Himalaya project team reached out to the AGNIi Mission team with a problem statement based on Human-wildlife conflict. The Human-wildlife conflict due to shrinking natural habitats is a key area of concern, resulting not only in human and animal mortality, but damage to agricultural crops, which is also forcing many people in rural areas to give up farming thereby impacting livelihoods in remote regions where the opportunities for employment are already limited. Hence, the AGNIi mission team started scouting solutions which are harmless to animals, can prevent conflicts, are workable at higher altitudes and low cost as well as applicable for agricultural lands. ANIDERS (Animal Intrusion Detection and Repellent System) is a device that detects animal intrusion in farmlands and turns them away by using the combination of Active and Passive Infrared sensors. These sensors detect the animal movements and use light and alarm system to repel them. As per a WWF India report, the innovation successfully repulsed the animals 86% of the times, which in turn resulted in 60% surge in crop produce. Since, this innovation perfectly matched with the problem statements mentioned by UNDP team, the solution got selected for its deployment in Uttarkashi and Sikkim district at higher range of Himalayas.
The AGNIi team remains committed to the objective of tackling the challenges in the agriculture sector with the help of emerging Indian technologies.
