Thanks to earth monitoring satellites, Indian farmer Lokeswara Reddy, who has twenty years of experience, has witnessed his crops bloom after years of hardship.

About ten years ago, Reddy, 52, who is presently a contract farmer with the multinational corporation Syngenta, stated that changing climatic patterns, rising input costs, a manpower shortage, and unpredictable weather started to interfere with his profits.

With the help of Syngenta and an Indian firm called Cropin, he was able to obtain satellite data that helped him with weather alerts, the best times to plant, and how to utilise pesticides and irrigation.

Reddy said that in the past ten years, his net profit on maize at his farm in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh had climbed from 5,000 to 10,000 rupees ($240) per acre.

“We are on a surer footing when it comes to agricultural practices; (using satellite data) safeguards us from climate change, pest and disease, problems with irrigation scheduling,” he said.

The Indian government is mainly relying on the use of satellite data to address issues on the ground, with agriculture being a primary priority, having recently loosened regulations governing foreign investment in the space sector.

Eleven academics, farmers, six industry startups, and three non-governmental organisations were contacted by Reuters, and they stated that big data and space technology had the potential to revolutionise Indian agriculture.

According to Pawan Goenka, head of the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre, the nation’s space regulatory authority, “India’s path to leadership in the new space race lies in utilising the power of data, and applications within the agricultural sector offer immense potential.”

The total financing received by Indian agritech startups and the number of operating agritech startups from 2013 to 2024 are displayed in the bar charts on the left and right, respectively.

The total financing received by Indian agritech startups and the number of operating agritech startups from 2013 to 2024 are displayed in the bar charts on the left and right, respectively.

An data analysis company located in India, Market Research Future, projects that the worldwide space agriculture market would grow from $4.99 billion in 2023 to $11.51 billion in 2032. India is seeing quicker growth in this industry than any other country in the Asia-Pacific region, despite China having the greatest market share, according to the report.

Founded in 2010 and supported by the Gates Foundation and Google, Cropin has inked an agreement with Amazon Web Services to analyse satellite data in an effort to address the world’s food poverty.

A 2019 corporate project study revealed that Cropin’s collaboration with farmers, the World Bank, and the Indian government in 244 villages digitised approximately 30,000 agricultural plots, spanning 77 crop species across climatic zones.

According to the study, 92% of the participating farmers raised their average output by 30% and their total farm income by over 37%. In Africa, the company’s outcomes were comparable.

Cropin and others are making use of a growing industry. Over the next five years, the market for using satellite data for horticulture and crop insurance might be worth almost $1.35 billion, according to a survey by Deloitte.

Another Indian firm, SatSure, is financed by Baring Private Equity and uses earth observation data analysis to assist loan analysis. According to Chief Executive Officer Prateep Basu, there are already 70 million farmer bank accounts in the nation, or around 38% of the overall number. According to him, that represents around $200 billion of all lenders’ loan books.

There are 2,743 agricultural tech businesses in India, and a lot of them use space technology or satellite data. Funding peaked at $1.3 billion in 2021; businesses raised $394.4 million and $136.7 million, respectively, in 2023 and this current year so far.

However, there remain obstacles in the way of the widespread application of space technology in farming.

In India, farmers typically own just 1.08 hectares of land. Industry analysts stated that low literacy and poverty levels, along with this fragmentation, provide obstacles to the use of technology.

According to Raghunath Reddy, a manager at Syngenta, “agriculture has never been a tech-forward sector and often farmers want to rely on traditional practices, or the wisdom of their forefathers.”

Agricultural technology in India has the potential to increase farmers’ earnings by 25% to 35%, according to McKinsey.

During her 2023 budget speech, Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman disclosed a 703 million rupee ($8.42 million) accelerator fund aimed at supporting agritech businesses. According to the government, the fund was assisting 1,138 of these businesses in March 2023.

For farmers like as Reddy, agriculture technology has translated into higher living standards; in the last five years, he has purchased a car and a new home in the city.

“My son, who wants to work as a software engineer overseas in the United States or London, would benefit from a higher education thanks to this boost in salary. We ultimately want our children to have better futures,” Reddy remarked.

(Adapted from TheHindu.com)

Categories: Creativity, Economy & Finance, Entrepreneurship, Strategy, Sustainability