The partnership will help DeHaat to exclusively manage the distribution & sales of six unique formulations patented by GBI and Aussan Labs through its exclusive network of 12,000 DeHaat franchise Centers spanning 110,000 villages across 12 Indian states, offering last mile access to over 2 million Indian farmers.

DeHaat, with existing tie-ups with over 250 agri companies offering a wide range of 3000+ agri input SKUs has extended its outreach to global IPs for the first time.

The association is aimed at empowering farmers with the right products & information to combat the changing climatic conditions and establish sustainable agricultural practices. DeHaat aims to facilitate these cutting-edge products that are designed to improve soil health and fortify crops against the adverse effects of climate change.

DeHaat has so far partnered with 4 such global innovations, offering access to its large farmers & last mile network and is hoping to extend this success to bring many more global agri solutions to Indian soil.

Amrendra Singh, Co-founder, said, “We are thrilled to partner with GBI and Aussan Labs, two of the highly innovative biological & hence environment friendly solutions. This collaboration aims to empower our farmers to adapt to sustainable practices & adopt climate resilient farming. As a ‘Farmers First’ organization, our mission remains to revolutionize the Indian agricultural ecosystem and deliver environment friendly products to our farmers. We are committed towards creating a sustainable future, empowering farmers with latest advancements, improving resource efficiency, and truly making a difference in their lives”.

Roger Tripathi, CEO, GBI, added, “We are keenly looking forward to working with DeHaat and its enormous reach in taking the efficacious GBI products to Indian farmers to make Indian agriculture more sustainable. We will focus on soil health and plant health linkages. Dehaat and GBI share the same passion.”

Sandeep Jayaswal, CEO, Aussan India, said “Our passion is to remove toxic chemicals from the agriculture industry and the food chain in general, as well as to give back to the planet by repairing damaged farm soils by working with nature and not against her. We are super exited to distribute CropBioLife, our Flagship innovation, through DeHaat’s massive network in India. This will enable higher ROI for Indian farmers in an eco-friendly & sustainable manner.”

It is worth noting that Aussan Labs’ flagship product ‘CropBioLife’, which was developed in 2004 after 6 years of development & 100+ trials conducted across the globe of a variety of crops is today certified organic in geographies like US, Canada, Australia & New Zealand, is available in 15 countries and has 6 patents issued or pending against its name. With the association, this innovative product will now be available in India exclusively through the DeHaat network.

DeHaat’s first-of-its-kind 360-degree agricultural value chain services to farmers enables the platform to understand farmer requirements in an efficient & transparent manner. As a result, DeHaat has evolved as network of 2mn transacting farmers for various agri offerings – right from agri input, soil test, crop advisory, financial services & output market linkage. Considering the volatile climatic situation at farmer level resulting in significant yield loss, DeHaat has successfully integrated climate resilient agri practices as part of its recommendation engine to farmers. The solutions from GBI & Aussan have been tested on more than ten crops across DeHaat’s operating geographies over the last 12 months to validate the impact matrix of 40-60% income enhancement through improved soil fertility & crop shelf life as well as enhancement in plant immunity.

The news comes in at a time when many global agri-input companies are positioning India as a target destination with a sizeable farming population, robust sector growth, improved technology adoption and increased interest in sustainable products among the Indian farming community.

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The fund will be used to introduce innovative products and value-added offerings into the market.
Barton Breeze plans to expand its FMCG range by introducing 20 more SKUs and further developing its farms across the Delhi National Capital Region.

The company was founded in 2018 by Shivendra Singh (CEO). It aims to make nutritious food affordable and accessible to all customers without compromising on quality or reducing its commitment to sustainable agricultural practices.

Barton Breeze claims that it has grows over 40 varieties of crops hydroponically for commercial offering and offers value-added products such as Ready to Eat Salad boxes, dips, and oils available online and in over 100 retail stores across Delhi NCR.

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The platform aims to bridge the gap between farmers and customers, expand the food product distribution network for farmers and other stakeholders in domestic markets, and provide timely access to finance for FPOs/agribusinesses for community infrastructure in terms of storage and transportation.
It also has walk-in Agrani centres that act as the physical outlets for all platform services to the stakeholders.

Navneet Ravikar, Chairman and MD of Leads Connect Services, said, “Through Agrani, we’re aiming to provide stage wise agronomy advisories such as impact of weather, biophysical, and crop management practises on yield productivity.”

“We’ve created agricultural credit and value chain scores for seamless, and efficient farm lending with electronic applications, disbursal of loans, insurance pay-outs linked to weather, field data all this aimed to benefit transfers in agriculture and help farmers struggling to get timely access to finance,” he added.

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The MoU was signed by PN Rasal, Dean(F/A) & Director of Instructions, MPKV university, and Anoop Kumar Upadhyay, Co-Founder & Director of IoTechWorld Avigation.

According to Upadhyay, IoTechWorld and the university will also work on joint educational and R&D projects to build a modern and sustainable smart agricultural system. The agritech firm will be the technical partner in setting up Remote Pilot Training Organization (RPTO) for agricultural drones with MPKV. It will help reduce the drone pilot shortage in the country.

Both will also develop standard operating procedures (SOPs) for crop spraying using drones.

“The tie-up with an institution like MPKV will help us promote research activities promoting drones in agriculture. Together we will work to promote drone technology for the betterment of Indian agriculture,” IoTech World directors Upadhyay and Deepak Bhardwaj said in a joint statement.

Bhardwaj further said that using drones in agriculture is helpful for farmers as these aerial robots help them save money and time.

Another objective of the MoU is to develop a smart agricultural system. IoTechWorld and the university will work on joint educational and R&D projects for the betterment of the agriculture sector. This will increase efficiency, reduce operational field delays, optimise the use of fertilisers and pesticides, and thus help increase farmers’ income.

One of the major advantages is that a farmer can save a lot by using drones to apply fertilisers and spray pesticides.

The Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare has issued guidelines to make drone technology affordable to stakeholders. The government has also created SOPs for pesticide applications for crop protection in agricultural, forestry, and non-cropped areas and for spraying for soil and crop nutrients.

As per the government estimate, India will require at least one lakh drone pilots by next year.

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For the benefit of the farmers, Noida based Agritech company, Leads Connect Services launched the Seamless Digital Implementation & Ground Monitoring Platform for Delivering End-to-End AgriTech Analytics Services to Farmers (SIGMAA) pilot study in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh. The SIGMAA study aims to identify and develop regions for high-value and high-quality crops such as Basmati rice, wheat, and mustard. An additional objective is to double the farmers’ income using sustainable farm practices and technological interventions. The study will be conducted for 4 seasons, starting from Kharif 2022–23 (June 2022) and ending in Rabi 2023-2024 (April 2024).

The study was launched in Tulia village of Bareilly by Shri. Santosh Gangwar, Member of Parliament. At the launch of SIGMAA, the farmers of Tulia and Jogither villages were advised on the usage of sustainable farm practices and technological interventions. A demonstration of Kisaan drones and fertilizer sprays was also conducted to make the farmers aware on the usage.

Leads Connect chose Bareilly to conduct the pilot study for its potential to be a market linkage hub as the city is not only in proximity to the commercial nodal centres of India but also a thriving urban cluster itself, an indispensable requirement for building a sustainable value chain. For the pilot study, 150 farmers will be on-boarded from these two 2 villages of Bareilly, using a field app and platform. After calculating the Agricultural Credit Score (ACS) for each farm and farmer, seeds, fertilisers, and pesticides will be distributed based on expert advisory. The study would also utilise a technology-based crop suitability analysis report to determine the best crop for the region. During the crop cycle, real-time monitoring will be conducted in situ and through the one-stop digital platform. Satellite & IOT/UAV will be leveraged for continuous data collection. The learnings from the study will be used to develop and implement models across Uttar Pradesh.

The launch also saw the presence of top executives of Leads Connect Services – Ghanshyam Khandelwal, Director & Mentor; Navneet Ravikar, Chairman & Manging Director; Richa Khandelwal, Director; Yogesh Kumar Singh, Vice President & Research Head; Syed Irshad Haider, India Head Crop & Govt. Business; Puneet Pandey, Chief Risk Analyst; Deepak Srivastava, Senior Risk Analyst; Dr Alok B Mukherjee, Chief Remote Sensing-GIS Analyst, R&D Head and Nitesh Awasthi, Chief Remote Sensing-GIS Analyst.

On the launch of pilot, Navneet Ravikar, Chairman & Managing Director, Leads Connect Services, commented, “The organisation is looking forward to SIGMAA because of its ground-level impact. The study will be able to give farmers crucial information about which crop and its variety are most suitable for sowing with just a click. Furthermore, they’ll have access to real-time agronomic intelligence, forecasting, and support throughout the crop cycle to drastically improve yield. We’re even giving Drone Analytics as a Service (DraaS) to farmers to assess crop health, fertiliser/pesticide spraying, and crop loss. The pilot also solves one of the hardest challenges for farmers: market linkages. LeadsConnect will lend them the appropriate support to sell their produce at fair and profitable prices.”

He further added that “There is a real need to decipher the influence of local field conditions on agricultural productivity. With this study, we’ll build a digital platform that can take in real-time scenarios and use predictive analytics to support farmers from sowing to selling. Capitalising on stage-wise data to reduce crop risk, and improve farm management practices, we’ll provide farm inputs, send alerts and share advisories on how to enhance yield, effectively doubling income for farmers.” 

On the occasion, Shri. Santosh Gangwar, Member of Parliament and Chief Guest at the event, “Technology and data when used right can help improve revenue for farmers, provide better value to the consumers and also reduce food wastage. I would like to congratulate the entire team of LeadsConnect Services for creating such a technologically advanced system that can help improve agri processes and help farmers achieve the highest potential for their produce. Technological advancements are now a part of every industry, and agriculture is no exception and I believe such a platform should be available for the farm community not just in Bareilly but entire state of Uttar Pradesh and across the nation”.

“Technological interventions and studies like SIGMAA can help all market stakeholders with the right data to ensure efficiency in their processes. Such a platform does not only benefit the farmer with insights essential to farming, but also provides stakeholders, risk managers and decision makers with the right data crucial for efficient planning and policy making. It is a great tool to connect farmers to an integrated value chain, unlock their potential and realize tremendous financial gains. The platform also strengthens the agriculture market and supply chain management to enhance logistics and improve productivity and profitability for the farmers, said Shri. Ghanshyam Khandelwal, Director and Mentor, Leads Connect Services.

“Through efforts from organizations such as Leads Connect we can now utilize the power of tech to help build market linkage of different segments and make the entire food ecosystem more efficient – the ultimate beneficiary being the consumer”, adds Shri. Khandelwal.

Leads Connect is working closely with nodal agencies such as Mahalanobis National Crop Forecast Centre (MNCFC), Agriculture Insurance Company (AIC), and Irrigation & Waterways Department, West Bengal for research-based projects related to yield estimation, crop cutting experiments (CCE), mapping agricultural infrastructures, and demarcation of flood-prone areas, respectively.

The company has also been actively involved in projects pertaining to disaster management, urban analytics, and health analytics, using cutting edge technologies such as satellite remote sensing analytics and machine learning (ML)/deep-tech intelligence since 2018. It has worked with the AIR Institute, Spain to investigate the biophysical effects of climate change in North-East India and with the Birla Institute of Technology (BIT) in Mesra-Jharkhand to assess the environmental dynamics of Jharkhand and develop an ML model.

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Distinct Horizon an agritech company benefiting the farmers with a widely tested Urea Deep Placement technique to reduce chemical usage for productive farming. It develops advanced technologies to boost farmer’s marginal profit and increase their food production while protecting the environment. It aims at technological equipment of farmers by providing innovative machines. With a joint approach, Distinct Horizon and Ayekart will also support in farmer training as well as exploring new markets.

Simplifying the primary objective of this MOU, Mr. Debarshi Dutta, Co-founder & CEO, Ayekart said, “We at Ayekart believe in technological advancement of agricultural produce through digitizing farmer’s productivity with various advance machines and introducing partnership opportunities with distributors, wholesalers, stakeholders, etc. It is one of our key mottos to digitize the food and agri value chain of India. To benefit farmer communities, we are also trying to procure funding through CSR, NGO’s and government bodies to help boost their productivity and enhance their business.”

Government bodies like NABARD has created the Farm Sector Promotion Fund to incubate innovations and diffusion of technologies in the realm of agriculture and allied sectors to benefit vulnerable sectors of farmers. These funding from government, CSR, NGO’s will help benefiting the farmer. Various partnership opportunities and advancement in technology helps boosting productivity and income of the famer communities of India.

Adding to Mr. Dutta’s statement, Santosh Kumar, Co-Founder & Head Operations, Distinct Horizon, said, “Our technologies can revolutionize the agriculture sector both in terms of productivity and income increase while at the same time significantly reduce chemical input and costs of production towards massive climate change mitigation and a healthier soil. It is our pleasure to work alongside an entity like Ayekart which is committed to scale up such technologies.”

Advancement in machinery have expanded the scale, speed, and productivity of farm equipment, leading to more efficient cultivation of more land. These advanced devices and precision agriculture allow farmer’s businesses to be more profitable, efficient, safer, and more environmentally friendly. Ayekart will create an end-to-end solution by digitizing, handholding and providing funding to these farmer communities.

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At a time when economies across the world are finding ways for sustainable farming due to depleting groundwater levels, Gram Unnati, India’s first integrated agri-tech solutions company, worked closely with multiple stakeholders to help farmers in Udham Singh Nagar district of Uttarakhand save 4,000 liters per acre by bringing climate-compatible agriculture to over 5,000 acres of farmland. 

In what may become a lesson in climate compatible agriculture to millions of Indian farmers, Gram Unnati worked closely with the local district administration, local maize processors, input companies, and lead farmers in a short span of 18 months prompting 2,000 farmers to switch to climate-compatible crops that are commercially viable as well. 

Commenting on the success of the project, Aneesh Jain, CEO and Founder, Gram Unnati, said, “The success of the project comes at a time when we are dealing with acute water shortage across the world. According to the United Nations, by 2050 more than five billion people could be affected by water scarcity. India, which constitutes 16% of the total world population, has access to a meagre 4% of the world’s water resources. The success of our pilot project in Uttarakhand will impact other farmers to shift towards climate compatible crops without having an impact on yield and returns.” 

Farmers of Udham Singh Nagar and adjoining areas in Uttar Pradesh (Rampur, Bareilly, and Pilibhit) traditionally take up a short duration summer paddy crop after their Rabi harvest and before Kharif sowing. Based on research, Gram Unnati identified Maize as a reasonably remunerative substitute for summer paddy. Maize is not only a short-duration crop, requiring less water compared to paddy but is also known to bring higher returns. Its multiple utilities such as ‘food’, ‘fodder’, and ‘feed’ help in de-risking farmers against potential low-demand situations. 

“The pilot project was successful in moving 5,000 acres of land to spring maize, which resulted in substantial water savings of as much as 4,000 litres per acre. The crop also generated 25 percent higher yield on the same piece of land. This has emerged as a good example of ‘more crop per drop’. The project also contributed towards fulfilment of Sustainable Development Goals like reducing poverty, increasing agricultural productivity, judicious use of water, and sustainable production,” added Jain.

Jain said that the success of the project in Udham Singh Nagar has encouraged Gram Unnati to take up newer challenges.

“Gram Unnati intends to scale up this intervention to 100,000 acres of Spring Maize in the next five years. Not only would this reduce dependency on groundwater resources, but it will also help in making agriculture more remunerative for the farmers and more sustainable for the environment,” Jain added. 

As agriculture is the largest consumer of fresh water in India, the shift from high to low-intensity crops such as Maize, pulses, millets, oilseeds, etc. has the potential to significantly reduce farmers’ dependence on rainwater/ irrigation, while helping in greater water conservation, enhancing farmers’ capacity to better cope with climate change and in the long run making India more self-sufficient in these crops.   

It is estimated that out of total extractable groundwater available in India, 90% goes to agriculture annually to often support highly water-intensive crops like paddy, sugarcane, and wheat, sometimes in severely water stressed regions of the country. As many as 30% of districts in India have reported ‘critical’ groundwater levels according to recent Central Ground Water Board data. The growing water crisis is being worsened by climate change with rising temperatures and uncertain rainfall patterns. 

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Agdhi, an agritech start-up has introduced a mobile platform ‘Planto’ that provides data analysis and provides accurate information on the maximum agricultural output. It generates insights out of raw field data and further used for field trial monitoring, production fields monitoring, disease tolerance analysis, pest resistance analysis, hybrid performance comparison, team management, Report generation and Digitisation. This vast information can be available in different languages such as English, Hindi, Marathi, Telugu, and Tamil.

Speaking on this occasion, Nikhil Das, Founder– Agdhi, said, “We are pleased to introduce new tool which will help the agricultural companies as well as farmers with new insights about crop & seedlings. This will help the farmers to take remedial and the future action.”

He added that with integrating various languages, we would like to extend this tool to different cities who can take advantage and help them in maximizing agricultural output

Agdhi has built Two App versions – ‘Surveyor’ and ‘Manager’ applications which collects and generates insights respectively.

• Planto Surveyor can be connected to any Planto registered company and is used to collect observations direct from field. It supports various data collection formats, crops and locations. The biggest advantage of Surveyor is that it can be used even when there is irregular or no network at all..
• Planto manager comes with all the reports and analysis required for any Manager or decision makers to perform strategic changes in their research or production. It provides real time data of ‘who’s in the field’ and ‘what’s going on’. Thus, the supervisors, managers, directors and owners is provided with a transparent view of the activities and insights and meaningful reports to take quick decisive actions.

The entire platform is available to subscribe in various plans suited for different types and scales of organization

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The Government of Assam (GoA) for its World Bank backed project, Assam Agribusiness and Rural Transformation Project (APART) has given the Crop Cutting Experiments (CCE) mandate to Noida based Agri-tech company, Leads Connect. The agritech will conduct the CCE in 23 districts of the Assam state, on pilot basis.

APART was launched in the year 2018 by the Government of Assam through Government of India and received huge funds from World Bank to uplift the agricultural sector of the state and encourage farmers to use technology to increase the production.

On being appointed, Mr. Navneet Ravikar, Chairman & Managing Director, Leads Connect Services Private Limited informed that “getting a mandate to conduct CCE for different zones of Assam is a huge achievement for us an organization, and we are very excited and prepared to deliver the project successfully”.

He further added, “that it is now indispensable to develop measures and frameworks for climate resilient agriculture for addressing the issues of food insecurity. Therefore, the need of using advance technology such as geospatial technology and artificial intelligence along with comprehensive field observations, are important. Performing these studies with sheer accuracy and precision, are keys, in providing people centric solutions besides necessity of upscaling developed solutions. So, the research unit of organization will also be utilizing this opportunity to further their research and development activities for developing quality products, in the context of climate resilient agriculture and disaster management, as these aspects are now needed to be studied in sync.”

Leads Connect, with its cutting-edge technologies such as Remote Sensing and GIS, Numerical Modeling, artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics frameworks, will co-observe the CCEs conducted by state Government of Assam. This pilot study will start from September 2021 and will be done for Kharif 2021. Currently, the agritech is engaged in delivering projects in more than 100 districts of India and has Pan-India presence backed by comprehensive presence of field team and well-equipped research lab.

About Leads Connect Services Private Limited

Leads Connect is an analytics company with core focus on Agri-technology driven Data Analysis and Modelling, Risk Management & Financial Services. It aims to connect farm value chain for enabling sustainable, scalable, and profitable agri-business ecosystem. Besides the core focus areas, the organisation has been engaged in research and development-based analytics related to climate and hazard, Landscape, Biodiversity, City, and Geospatial analytics.

Leads Connect has delivered projects related to crop cutting experiments (CCEs), Remote Sensing based Crop Health Monitoring, Crop Acreage, Crop Yield estimates, Risk and Claim Management Services to various central and state organisations, insurers, and reinsurers. In addition, they have delivered projects pertaining to GP level yield estimation using technology. It has used machine learning algorithms and satellite remote sensing analytics to develop framework for yield estimation at GP level. They are currently monitoring CCEs for PMFBY in more than 100 districts across India along with Geotagging of Agriculture Infrastructures in 125 districts for NABCONS, a wholly owned subsidiary of NABARD.

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