Digital interventions in farm to fork model

Abstract

Agriculture has been the backbone of the Indian economy right from centuries and continues to be a significant contributor to the employment rates in India. With technology being the game-changer across various sectors, it is necessary to transform agriculture from traditional farming into tech-enabled agriculture. Farm to Fork strategy continues to be at the core of the Agri policies across the globe, and it has been gaining popularity on account of various benefits it brings to all the stakeholders and also ensures optimum utilization of natural resources in a sustainable manner. Many companies have been trying to innovate across the Agri value chain through the use of smart technologies like AI, ML, Big data, robotics, etc. This project analyses the various technologies adopted by two companies, Ninjacart and Waycool, which are leading B2B Agri players in India as on date based on the total revenues. The focus was to understand how the companies are trying to create differentiation among their offerings and thereby create an unimitable core competency as the competitive environment continues to intensify in this sector. Through this report, we have carried out a comparative study of the technological interventions across various aspects of the value chain adopted by both these companies, the similarities and differences, projects under development, and future plans. Through our analysis, we have identified the challenges faced by these companies and classified the same as technological and strategic issues. Based on our learnings, we have provided a set of recommendations that could help these companies in overcoming these problems and make the business self-sustainable. It is important for the existing players to come up with a differentiated business model, which has technology at its core, thereby making the model easily scalable. Also, focus their efforts on consolidation of offerings across the Agri value chain to create a 'one-stop farm ecosystem.'