AgriMinister plans contest of agri-tech start-ups

New Delhi: Giving a push to Start-up India scheme, a flagship programme of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Agriculture Ministry is launching agriculture grand challenge for agri-tech start-ups to address key challenges being faced by the agriculture sector.

The ministry has identified 12 key problem statements which range from providing a fair price to the farmers to the creation of yield estimation models which can be used by farmers.

According to a senior official, the start-ups working in agriculture sector would be given 12 important challenges to find out their solutions that would help farmers in doubling their income by 2022.

The themes that have been identified for the grand challenge are developing simplified soil testing methods, assaying and grading solution, development of e-marketplace, price forecasting during sowing, last mile information dissemination, yield estimation.

They also include sorting and grading of produce, adulteration testing, custom hiring centres, crop residue disposal, prevent pre-harvest and post-harvest losses and enhancing agricultural productivity.

"Two solutions for each problem at for idea stage and the ready-market stage would be shortlisted by the committee under the programme. The idea stage start-ups would get incubation support to go from idea to prototype while the ready market solutions would get be part of a market access programme aimed at the easy adoption of their innovation," the official said while giving details about the challenge programme which would be launched on Friday.

It's for the first time that agriculture ministry has taken up such an innovative approach towards crowdsourcing solutions and promoting Start-Up ecosystem. The challenge is being supported by Qualcomm, Invest India and ICRISAT.