“The Covid-19 pandemic has posed more challenges on the agriculture supply side and a major change was witnessed in terms of increased direct sourcing, which will be a new norm in the future,” states the Compendium titled ‘Innovative Business Models emerging through Covid-19’ released jointly by NABARD Consultancy Services (NABCONS)-A wholly owned subsidiary of NABARD in partnership with CII- Food and Agriculture Centre of Excellence (CII-FACE).
Dr G R Chintala, Chairman, NABARD informed that in order to support the farmers during Covid-19, the Development Finance Institution will disburse Rs 1,20,000 crore crop loan this fiscal. Maintaining that the pandemic saw a paradigm shift in the functioning of the agriculture sector and with the help of Rs 1 Lakh crore Agriculture Infrastructure Fund (Rs 10,000 crore initially and Rs 30,000 crore each year for the next three years) under the Atmanirbhar Bharat package, Chintala added that new 5,000 Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) will be targeted this year out of which 2,287 have already responded positively.
“It will play a crucial role in flowing credit for setting up critical agriculture infrastructure at the ground level and it will create 25 lakh tonnes of capacities under the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund. We are also partnering with most commercial banks to provide credit to micro food processing units associated with the local Kirana units. With the upcoming launch of the scheme for promotion of 10,000 FPOs in the country, the agriculture sector will experience quality production combined with an industry centric vision,” he added.
Resilient innovations during pandemic
Unveiling the Compendium, Parshottambhai Rupala, Hon’ble Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ said, “The compendium prepared by CII-FACE and NABCONS is a great reference tool useful in the future, as it has established innovative models of agriculture. These robust models developed in this period, such as direct procurement from farm Gates, can be strengthened to make them long lasting even after the crisis period is over.” Lauding NABARD’s efforts, he said, “It is a major milestone in the history of NABARD to have disbursed such volumes of loan to farmers and contributing so significantly to the revival stage of this pandemic.” He further suggested NABARD to digitise the crop loan subvention scheme process so that the farmers can settle the loans at zero per cent in real time and seamlessly. He emphasised to develop FIGITAL (physical and digital) model to boost agriculture sector.
Dr Chintala added, “Agriculture sector has seen a major shift in the Covid break-out, but the combined efforts of the governments, industry and the Institution, both procurement and direct delivery to consumers were made possible through technological innovations in logistics and supply chains up to the ground level. In the crisis period itself, NABARD has disbursed Rs 90,000 crore loan for crop production.”
K Venkateswara Rao, Managing Director, NABCONS informed that the Compendium showcases resilient innovations the governments and the businesses introduced during the pandemic that will become a reference for future. He said, “In this crisis scenario, maximum partnerships were witnessed in consumer distribution channels. Alliance with online aggregators were formed by producers. The Central Govt and State governments leveraged digital portals to connect producers with consumers that was crucial in the case of marketing of perishable goods in the lock-down period. There is need for scaling up some of these technology driven solutions in the post Covid-19 period especially in the agriculture and food sector.”
Technology, Collaborations and Innovation
Technology, Collaborations and Innovation (TCI) emerged as the key pillars to tide over the crisis. Sanjiv Puri, Chairman, CII National Council on Agriculture and Chairman & Managing Director, ITC maintained that the Covid-19 pandemic has made businesses emerge from survival to revival phases and now post Covid, there will be the ‘Next Normal’ where path-breaking digitally – driven reforms will change the trends forever. “A key achievement has been the speed and alacrity of the digital penetration that has been achieved, which otherwise might have taken years to achieve. In fact 10 years’ worth of digital penetration has been achieved in the matter of weeks of the pandemic,” he added.
The Compendium emphasised that the government’s innovations such as ‘Moving to One Nation, One Market’ will harness economies of scale and attract private sector investment into agriculture sector; especially into cold storages and modernisation of food supply chain. The formation of new 10,000 Farmer Producers’ Organisations (FPOs) will also align with the agro cluster approach of ‘one district, one crop’ for better prices with increased scale of crops.
Smart Agriculture
Other steps such as enabling online marketplaces through ‘Smart Agriculture’, transport aggregator mobile app ‘Kisan Rath’, creating the railways network to supply perishable horticultural produce, seeds, milk and dairy products, setting up of rural retail shops through Self-Help Groups, online home deliveries of fruits and vegetables, etc. have opened up higher development and earnings avenues for the farmers. Several forms of innovations ranging from partnering with food delivery chains for last mile linkage, to leveraging technology by swiftly developing Apps and linking the supply chain to consumer households were presented in the Compendium.
The Compendium has cited some major examples such as Marico’s and Keventer’s partnerships with Swiggy, Zomato for product deliveries; local players such as Gyan Dairy in Uttar Pradesh launching an App-based subscription of milk and milk products with contactless delivery; ITC leveraging the Direct-to-Home (DTH) model to sell directly to consumers under ‘ITC on Wheels’ initiative to cater to the growing demand for frozen food and ready to eat foods; TAFE leveraging trains to supply tractors to consumers; Big Basket and Promethean ensuring farm-to-fork connectivity through innovative business models; Promethean launching the Reefer Vending Truck in Pune for maintaining the cold chain from the farm to the consumer; Olam India’s Sustainable Rice Platform and AMUL developed range of immunity booster beverages.
