Kumar Ranjan, the CEO of the agritech startup E-Feed, included ludo and other casual games in his app, which he distributed to farmers. But selling advisory services to dairy, poultry, and aqua farmers across the country is his main business.
In India, the advisory model is becoming increasingly popular among agritech startups. This is reflected in Nasscom’s Indian Tech Startups Report, 2021. According to the report, “farm advisory” was the top solution-driven startup category in agritech over the previous year.
“We’re trying to use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to analyze the satellite-based soil data that we have, to see if we can help improve the produce quality,” said Amith Agarwal, chief executive of Agribazaar. “We’re drawing data from these analytics to learn the ideal crop for a field, and yield estimates. Based on this, we’re offering advisories to farmers registered on our platform,” he added.
Agribazaar, according to Agarwal, has over 700,000 registered farmers on its platform, with over half of them returning users who use its advisories on a regular basis. While Agribazaar does not charge farmers who use the advisories a subscription fee, it does charge a premium on produce sold through its direct-to-consumer (D2C) marketplace.
“Consumers do not mind paying a premium, and the efficiency of our data-based farm advisories is 99.99%, which works for all parties involved,” Agarwal claimed.
E-Feed, too, is relying on advisories as the key model for its business. It has a team of scientists, augmented by the involvement of “ration balancing software” that is integrated into its mobile app. “The software lets farmers select their geographical location, choose the type of animals on their farm, and the target prices they can afford. Once this is selected, they can draw out a farm feed composition tailored to their needs,” said Ranjan.
Based on a combined output of scientist advisories and the software data, dairy, poultry and aqua farmers are recommended the right feed for animals, which can be purchased directly through E-Feed’s app. “There’s a clear return on investment, too. Dairy farmers using our data to purchase feeds are already seeing almost three litres more of milk per animal every day,” Ranjan claimed.
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