New Bharat: Youth and Agri-Startups

Hi friends 👋,

Happy Wednesday and welcome to the 16th edition of Weekly Olio - your weekly dose of curated content with a tinge of a thought piece (yes, we mean Publisher’s Parmesan here). 🤭 

We know you have a lot of questions. Where were we last week? Why this sudden change of theme? etc. Let us give you the context behind it.

Last Tuesday, our old platform, Substack, abruptly shut us down for some vague violation that they themselves couldn't even explain. We appealed to them, wrote emails, tweeted, and messaged on LinkedIn, but to no avail.

One thing was clear in our heads though, we wanted to keep delivering the same great content to our subscribers. Hence, we decided to move to a new platform and that took some time - importing data, setting up the new stack etc.

We've made sure that our new platform is up to snuff with all the rules and guidelines, and we think it's going to be even better than before. We know change can be a pain, but we hope you'll stick with us and keep supporting us on our new platform. 😊 

If you have any questions or concerns, don't hesitate to hit us up.

Today’s, Publisher’s Parmesan covers the post-COVID agritech landscape in India. The intent is to highlight the transformations underway in Indian agritech and share the renewed sense of optimism regarding the path ahead.

Let’s start with the curation first.

The Quote󠀢 💭

The Tweet 🐦

Ultimately, the Formula 1 season is a grind — mentally & physically. 🏎

Teams spend thousands of hours & millions of dollars on logistics, and the difference between winning and losing can come down to milliseconds.

But that's why F1 is one of the world's most popular sports. 🏁

The Infographic 💹

What's the verdict? Is Elon Musk's Twitter a never-ending source of entertainment or a danger to society?

Well, buckle up folks, we went on a wild ride through the Tesla CEO's tweets and we've got all the juicy details to share! Get ready for a Twitter investigation like no other, where the stakes are high and the tweets are...well, out of this world.

The Short Read 📝

What fusion’s breakthrough means for clean energy - by MIT Technology Review

The researchers at the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have achieved net energy gain, which means that the energy generated from the fusion reaction was more than the energy required to initiate the reaction. This marks a significant milestone in the field of fusion research and demonstrates the viability of fusion energy. ⚛

Achieving net energy gain is a significant step for the field, but it is still a long way from seeing fusion energy in commercial applications. The next step is to develop reactors which can produce much more energy than what's supplied. and to develop reactors. Seems like it will take many more breakthroughs in science and engineering to turn fusion into a commercial technology that can provide reliable, carbon-free energy to the grid. ❇

The Long Read 📜

AI and the Big Five - by Ben Thompson

AI in general and ChatGPT of OpenAI, in particular, is likely to go down as one of the big technological breakthroughs of 2022. It will take a long while for us to fully appreciate the gamut of applications for AI and ML. Australian universities returning to pen-and-paper exams as students are caught using AI to write essays, is one unintended consequence.

But on a serious note, here’s Ben Thompson taking a stab at what it means for the world’s biggest tech companies – Amazon, Apple, Meta, Google and Microsoft – who wins and who doesn’t, based on their business models and their current capabilities in AI.

Ben reckons Microsoft will be the biggest winner of the lot. However, he is quick to acknowledge that we still haven’t seen Google’s own AI capabilities which have been under development for long. Furthermore, other businesses of Google such as Youtube and its cloud services will be beneficiaries of this breakthrough in AI.

He discusses implications for Apple, Amazon, Meta and Nvidia but ends up with one undisputed winner – TSMC, the Taiwanese Semiconductor foundry which will likely make the majority of the chips on which AI will run for the foreseeable future.

Publisher’s Parmesan 🧀

New Bharat: Youth and Agri-Startups

COVID-19 has been a terrible human tragedy, but also a catalyst for rapid social change. Trends that grew steadily over two decades, including e-commerce, WFH, and food delivery, suddenly surged into ubiquity as lockdowns commenced across the globe. The situation in India has been similar, but with a renewed sense of optimism regarding the path ahead for Indian agritech.

In recent years, agritech has emerged as one of the hottest new sectors in India’s fast-growing startup ecosystem. As entrepreneurs and investors expand their focus beyond the initial 50 million customers, agriculture offers great potential for companies that prioritize technology to revolutionize conventional approaches. Over the last five years, there has been significant growth in this field, with a nine-fold increase in institutional funding.

Agritech companies have seen a considerable increase in demand across the value chain post the lockdown with several of them expecting to see positive sales growth for the year.

The surge in demand has resulted in a positive outlook regarding fundraising, and many agritech founders are optimistic about a rise in investment activity within the next 6-12 months.

At the same time, while most companies are bullish on demand, fulfilling the increasing inbound leads has proved to be difficult for a number of companies due to various challenges, especially around logistics.

Emerging trends

The pandemic caused disruptions across the agri-supply chain, including the closing of markets, breakdown of procurement, and halt in several on-ground operations. The pandemic also caused many migrants to move back to their homes leading to skewed labour availability.

During the same time period, the government announced far-reaching reforms. All of these have contributed to new business models gaining importance in the agritech landscape. Some of these emerging trends are as follows:

• Rise of B2B platforms and farmer marketplaces – Digital platforms have seamlessly connected various stakeholders in the supply chain.

• The emergence of Farm to Consumer Brands (F2C) – Rising health awareness has led to demand for safe and traceable food products. This could potentially lead to the creation of vertically integrated farm-to-consumer brands.

• Adoption of precision agriculture – The rising penetration of smartphones has made farmers more comfortable using precision agri-technology. The onset of COVID has driven adoption as on-ground manual support reduced.

• Creation of E-Markets – The new government reforms coupled with the disruption of market linkages due to the pandemic have accelerated the creation of inter-state e-markets involving farmers, traders and buyers.

Yeah, this makes sense.

But is there really a rise in B2B platforms and farmer marketplaces?

Let’s check out.

Flipkart and Amazon's emergence has established digital marketplaces as a common feature for consumers in urban areas. Meanwhile, less conspicuous yet equally flourishing are the B2B marketplaces in various industries. In line with the next billion consumers transitioning online, the agritech sector has also started to develop such platforms, with some established players achieving notable scale long before COVID-19.

Before the pandemic, many platforms utilized a hybrid model for customer acquisition and service delivery because a considerable number of supply chain members, from farmers to retailers, were not yet entirely comfortable with web or app-based ordering and product consumption. Although smartphone and data penetration has significantly increased in rural India, many agri-companies still relied on call centre-based solutions for customer acquisition and to offer advisory and commerce facilities.

The COVID-19 lockdown in the country caused considerable chaos for most call centre operations, with traditional supply chains entirely disrupted. With conventional options unavailable and call-based solutions inaccessible, the absence of these services has driven all stakeholders in the value chain to adopt digital solutions significantly.

While things have begun to return to normal since the lockdown has lifted, these platforms continue to see high engagement as users discover the benefit of migrating to digital media for day-to-day business operations.

Hmm… Okay! All this is good but are there any real examples?

Let’s examine four platforms that are trying to build traction across sectors and the value chain within agritech.

Agrostar

AgroStar leverages its exclusive expertise in agronomy, data, and technology to recommend appropriate solutions to Indian farmers. This information is available through both a call centre and a farmer-friendly app in the local language. Through the AgroStar platform, farmers can upload pictures of their crop-related issues and receive scientific advice promptly. Additionally, AgroStar collaborates with over 200 brands and employs a tech-enabled last-mile delivery network to provide genuine products to the farmer's doorstep in rural India.

When the pandemic hit, the agri-input supply chain was disrupted, hindering Agrostar’s ability to deliver products. Their ability to give agronomy advice via the call centre was also severely challenged.

AgroStar adopted a content-first strategy for their app, prioritizing providing high-quality and personalized content to every farmer. The tech and product teams improved content curation to enable farmers to find solutions to problems based on their region, crops, and interest areas. The content-first approach proved to be successful as engagement increased by 67%. As the supply chain began to recover in the following weeks, AgroStar also noted a significant increase in its app revenues, which grew three-fold.

DeHaat

DeHaat is an online platform that provides end-to-end agricultural value chain services to farmers. Their services include distributing high-quality agricultural inputs, offering customized farm advisory, providing access to financial services, and facilitating market linkages for selling produce. The platform's AI-enabled farm advisory and agri-input services are used by around 390,000 farmers.

In addition to its other services, DeHaat also aggregates corn, wheat, rice, fruits, and vegetables from farmers on its platform. They do this through their extensive network of around 1,300 exclusive micro-entrepreneurs. DeHaat supplies these agricultural products directly to over 300 commodity bulk buyers, which include retail chains, e-commerce players, FMCG giants, and SME food processors.

During the COVID-19 lockdown, DeHaat's extensive network proved to be particularly useful as the traditional supply chain linkages to farmers broke down. Mandis, output traders, input retailers, and logistics players were unable to work, and there was a shortage of manpower. As a result, DeHaat experienced a massive surge in demand for its services from farmers. The platform saw a three-fold increase in app downloads and call centre enquiries, with farmers seeking support for their crops, inputs, and output marketing.

DeHaat increased digital engagement with its stakeholders – acquisition, onboarding, monitoring, and deployment of services to the microentrepreneur network happened remotely during the lockdown period, without any drop-in efficiency.

With a strong presence in states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, which saw the number of migrants returning from the cities, DeHaat also saw a 450% spike in enquiries for microentrepreneur franchisees and a general improvement in digital adoption, driven by the movement of this more digitally aware population.

Ninjacart

Ninjacart connects farmers directly with buyers in the HORECA segment, standalone vegetable stores, and supermarkets. Its goal is to disintermediate the supply chain. To date, the company has helped create market linkages for more than 20,000 farmers, which has resulted in up to a 20% increase in revenue compared to local mandis.

The sudden imposition of the lockdown resulted in traditional retailers being left with no alternatives for procurement of fresh produce as most major mandis were shut down. Even after the lockdown lifted, the traditional supply chain took time to become functional again. This led to retailers seeking alternative solutions that could connect them directly with farmers.

Ninjacart was quick to launch initiatives to help distressed farmers in getting their produce to market. With their initiative “Harvest the farms”, they identified farmers in need of help in liquidating their crops and offered to buy their vegetables at a nominal price where the farmers could recover the cost of production. Using their well-established supply chain, they then sold these vegetables at a lower price to customers. Through this initiative Ninjacart was able to help more than 150 farmers in selling their produce, creating strong farmer loyalty for the company.

Aquaconnect

Aquaconnect is a technology company that focuses on the aquaculture industry. They work with shrimp and fish farmers to help improve their farm productivity using advanced technologies like AI and GIS remote sensing. Additionally, they assist farmers in establishing market connections for their products.

Aquaconnect’s omnichannel marketplace also allows aquaculture farmers to transact with hatcheries, feed producers, farm equipment manufacturers, laboratories, financial institutions, seafood buyers, processors, exporters, and certifying bodies.

Typically, aquaculture farmers get advisory support through on-ground field agents, who would personally visit the farms. Such services, obviously, could not be provided during the lockdown. In this situation, Aquaconnect’s app-based advisory solution was able to easily bridge the gap, helping owners living in tier-II and III cities remotely manage their farms located in rural areas.

The sharp drop in exports during this period prompted aquaculture farmers to turn to domestic consumption for their products. To achieve higher realizations, farmers wanted to connect directly with businesses by bypassing the middlemen. Aquaconnect helped farmers establish these linkages with domestic online & offline seafood retailers thereby reconfiguring domestic supply chains.

While it will be quite some time before agri-marketplaces see the scale of adoption e-commerce companies enjoy in urban areas today, we expect the boost to agri-marketplaces and platforms to sustain and even rise sharply in the coming months as farmers increasingly get comfortable with newer ways of working.

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Peeyush and Mohit

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