Amity Institute of Organic Agriculture (AIOA) organized Industry Academia Meet – 2020 on the theme “Impact of COVID19: Agriculture & Food Business". The purpose of this meet was to bring together commercial agribusiness players, a diverse range of industries, development sectors and foundations on a common platform. During the Program Mr Shivaji Singh (Chair) , DGM & Head of HR JuAgri Sciences; Mr Tony Mallik, State Head – Gujarat, Dr Dinesh Chauhan, Director, Indigram Group & COO, Indian Society of Agribusiness Professionals (ISAP) ; Dr Vipin Joshi, Quality Assurance Manager, Nuziveedu Seeds Limited; Mr Mendu Srinivasulu, Vice President, eFresh Agribusiness Solutions Pvt. Ltd shared their views. Dr Ashok K Chauhan, Founder President, Amity Education Group welcomed the panelists.
Dr Vipin Joshi, Quality Assurance Manager, Nuziveedu Seeds Limited shared that agriculture deserves a new deal in a post Covid-world. The pandemic has highlighted major gap in the way agricultural policy has been conducted over many decades. He stated that it forcefully brought back the importance of self-reliance in food production and the pitfalls of free trade regime. he further shared that in the developing world, where small farmers have not been uprooted yet by large-scale agri-business or corporate firms, the challenges are related to questions of agrarian transition and the role of the state in agricultural policy. he stressed on bringing these concerns forcefully to the policy table post lockdown.
Mr Shivaji Singh (Chair) , DGM & Head of HR JuAgri Sciences said that India has the second- highest arable land area in the world and a coastline of over 7,500 kilometers. He stated that Covid 19 impacted agricultural value chain in short to medium term. He averred that nearly 50% farmers feel that there is no challenge in the current cropping practices due to covid 19 but high cost, unavailability and cash crunch are the most worrying challenges. He shared that 15% farmers across are using home delivery facility provided by their local retailers- mostly coming from Chhattisgarh. 67% of these farmers are paying cash on delivery of products. Digital wallets are used by some in Chhattisgarh & AP.
Mr Mendu Srinivasulu, Vice President, eFresh Agribusiness Solutions Pvt. Ltd said that procurement of quality inputs and other products, competitive pricing, farm output market linkages are the biggest challenges faced. He shared that Efresh has identified root causes for the challenges and conceived a Smart and safe farming platform to provide supportive ecosystem to the FPOs under the umbrella of farmers Development Centre which is setup at FPO premises for enabling it members to access all the farmer’s needs.
Mr Tony Mallik, State Head – Gujarat, IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Ltd said that need is to identify/ predict the consumer palate and food processing booster. He called for assesing the value additional possibilities and smart farmer should play major role by data driven real time decision making. Farmers must adopt innovation ideas and agri- entrepreneur attitude.
Dr Dinesh Chauhan, Director, Indigram Group & COO, Indian Society of Agribusiness Professionals (ISAP) said that the world has changed largely and people have learned a lot from the name of technology and work from home. Agriculture industry was dependent on labor but post covid this has become the challenge. He stated thta digital platform will connect the markets in the times to come.