India hosts numerous legacy institutions in agriculture, has a thriving corporate presence and a dynamic civil society, plenty of technology talent and a policy environment that focuses on rural development and is designed to work towards enhancing farmers’ incomes. Yet, agricultural innovations have failed to reach and/or benefit lives of the 75% of India’s farmers who are categorized as small and marginal farmers (with landholdings of less than two hectares) (NITI Ayog, 2015). One of the primary reasons for this fail is the lack of a formal structured bridge to connect the technology provider to the target user. There is a need to integrate the efforts of the state government, civil society and CSRs to develop interventions which answer the needs of the farmer communities and work with them to solve these challenges in a sustainable manner to create an irreversible impact on their lives.
About India Agritech Incubation Network
Indian Agritech Incubation Network (IAIN) is an initiative by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Social Alpha that envisions to create an enabling ecosystem for innovators and entrepreneurs developing solutions for smallholder farmers in order to help them become more productive, profitable and empowered. IAIN will drive ecosystem-level collaborations to improve incomes of smallholder farmers, reduce input costs while improving quality, increase productivity at the farm level, reduce post-harvest losses and provide better market access including value chain enhancements.
Launched in 2019, IAIN adopts an integrated approach to foster ecosystem-level collaboration amongst state government, agricultural universities, corporates, industry bodies and grassroots resource institutions to ensure a seamless flow of knowledge, technology, and expertise to benefit the community and the start-ups. The programme recognizes that the end-user is ‘sticky’ and there is a need to drive adoption at the last mile through pilots, product validations, knowledge and hiring centers and end-user financing. The programme design has an in-built focus on continuous learning and knowledge sharing through periodic stakeholder knowledge dissemination workshops and anecdotal case studies of field impact.
Agri-Allied Activities
Each year, IAIN collaborates with the farming community and experts to identify critical problems faced on-ground. Agritech start-ups working to address the problems are open to apply to the program during the application cycle.
- Innovation to help farmers in reducing the cost of inputs and accessibility thereby improving the productivity.
- Affordable and sustainable solutions to reduce dependency on chemical inputs.
- Affordable and energy-efficient tools for land preparation, input application, inter cultivation, plant protection, harvesting etc that reduces drudgery, have improved user experience and are suitable for small land parcels.
- Near real-time, decentralized soil testing solutions, with accurate results and appropriate input recommendations.
- Precision crop health monitoring solutions that deliver actionable intelligence to reduce crop losses.
- Solutions for early pest/disease detection, monitoring system and advisory to minimize crop damage.
- Smart and energy efficient irrigation management system including rejuvenation and ground water recharging.
- Decentralized, affordable, and modular energy-efficient storage facilities for perishable and non-perishable commodities.
- Solutions to reduce storage losses and enhance the shelf-life of farm produce naturally.
- Sorting, grading and quality management and assurance solutions.
- Food processing technologies to convert highly perishable crops into value added products closer to farmgate.
- Farming as-a-service along with the agriculture value chain i.e., land preparation to market linkage.
- Solutions to enhance the productivity of livestock by addressing the challenges in the areas of animal nutrition, health & disease, and breed management.
- Solutions for mitigating the impact of extreme weather events on cattle’s, poultry, and fisheries.
- Solutions for input cost reduction and access to affordable equipment’s, actionable advisory and market linkages for inland fisheries.
Offerings
Sandbox facility to test, validate and pilot innovations/projects on-ground
Access to seed investment and/or other funding opportunities
Access to a large investor and donor network
Access to state-of-the-art technology incubation space with high-quality labs, equipment for refining and testing. As well as access to shared office space and amenities
Assistance in product development; designing, rapid prototyping and design for manufacturing
Dedicated agri-business experts to assist with business planning, go-to-market strategy, overall advisory and mentorship by a set of qualified global and local experts
Curated capacity building sessions
Practical on-the-ground feedback from the farmer community, grassroot non-profits, agriculture experts, corporate and government bodies
Support services such as accounting, compliance, taxation, legal, IP, etc.
Our Selected Startups For Year 1
- AgpharmaJuly 28, 2022
Agpharma - AqgromalinJuly 28, 2022
Aqgromalin - BharatRohanJuly 28, 2022
BharatRohan - Bio PrimeJuly 28, 2022
Bio Prime - BomlifeJuly 28, 2022
Bomlife - Distinct HorizonJuly 28, 2022
Distinct Horizon - Earth AnalyticsJuly 28, 2022
Earth Analytics - EF PolymerJuly 28, 2022
EF Polymer - Grassroots EnergyJuly 28, 2022
Grassroots Energy - Greenpod LabsJuly 28, 2022
Greenpod Labs - Grey MatterJuly 28, 2022
Grey Matter - Hueristic DevicesJuly 28, 2022
Hueristic Devices - InnoFarmsJuly 28, 2022
InnoFarms - KheytiJuly 28, 2022
Kheyti - LoopwormJuly 28, 2022
Loopworm - MisteoJuly 28, 2022
Misteo - AgrogradeJuly 28, 2022
Agrograde - PashubajaarJuly 28, 2022
Pashubajaar - TracexJuly 28, 2022
Tracex
IAIN Impact
Impact Stories
Come join the IAIN movement