Budget 2023: Agritech Sector Hails ‘Agriculture Accelerator Fund’, Says ‘Boost for Innovation, Startups’

The Union Budget 2023 made quite an emphasis on agriculture, the largest contributor to India’s gross domestic product, with new initiatives that have cost-effective solutions to boost agricultural output. The move has attracted much praise from the sector, which hailed the ‘Agriculture Accelerator Fund’.

“The fund will aim at bringing innovative and affordable solutions for challenges faced by farmers. It will also bring in modern technologies to transform agricultural practices, increase productivity and profitability,” said finance minister Nirmala Sitaraman while presenting the new budget on Wednesday.

“This will provide a much-needed boost in productivity, besides improving efficiency, and reducing crop failure, to farmers and other stakeholders in the supply chain, who will now gain access to new age technology developed by agri-tech startups. The accelerator fund is certain to drive innovation in the sector, which will ensure optimal use of all resources including the vast labour pool engaged in farming,” said Mayank Tiwari, founder and CEO of Resha Mandi (a farm to retail digital ecosystem).

The government has also proposed to increase the agricultural target to Rs 20 lakh crore with emphasis on animal husbandry, dairy and fisheries. Agricultural startups in India working to improve logistics of the sector by putting technology to good use for streamlining produce, cutting down on intermediaries and ensuring farmers receive fairprice, will be empowered by this initiative.

“Our efforts to improve the supply chain network for all our stakeholders in the natural fibre ecosystem receive a major boost from the decision to support collaborative projects between farmers, states and businesses to provide input supply extension services and market connection. Besides providing direct access to global markets, ready access to the internet will expose the farming community to best agricultural practices in the world,” Tiwari said.

In the budget, the central government also shared its plans to build a digital public infrastructure for agriculture – consisting of farmer-centric solutions through information services and access to crop estimation, market intelligence and other farm inputs.

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