The Agri Digitization Framework Discussion Report

Date: November 14, 2024

Venue: ITC Maurya, Delhi, India

Link to the session on YouTube: Click Here

Launch Highlights:

Welcome Address: Nipun Mehrotra, Co-Founder & Ceo of The Agri Collaboratory (TAC), welcomed the 60+ session attendees, introduced the rationale and thinking Agri Digitalisation Framework (AgDx), and outlined its transformative potential in creating equitable access to digital agriculture. He also outlined the session objective to capture feedback from the Startups, Foundations, and other Private stakeholders present to enrich the AgDx
Keynote Speech: Sanjiv Rangrass, Co-Founder, of TAC, emphasized the importance of co-developing public goods to empower the farming community and launched AgDx, presenting the framework formally for the first time.
Discussion: Experts from the Institute For Competitiveness, Samunnati, The World Bank, and other key organizations discussed strategies for leveraging AgDx with several use cases - for instance, fintech solutions to address credit access and risk mitigation; for climate-smart agriculture, farmer advisories, and supply chain transparency etc.

Introduction

The AgDx launch event marked a significant milestone in advancing farmer-centric digital agriculture in India and the Global South. Co-created by The Agri Collaboratory (TAC), CGIAR, and the Institute for Competitiveness, AgDx is envisioned as a public good that systematically assesses digitalisation's penetration, maturity, and impact across agricultural practices, products, and processes.

Globally, countries like Kenya, Vietnam, Brazil, India, and Turkey have demonstrated how strategic investments in digital agriculture can drive productivity, resilience, and market access. India, with its pioneering data stack innovations, has the opportunity to lead this transformation across the Global South and AgDx could play an enabling role. A collaborative, ecosystem-led approach across the States and the Central Government, private, public, and research sectors is essential to enable digital agriculture, just as UPI and UID transformed other domains. With the World Bank investing $1.5 billion globally in agriculture digitalisation, AgDx provides a critical framework to benchmark progress, scale best practices, and ensure smallholder farmers benefit from digital advancements.

Need for Digitalisation in Agriculture and the Role of a Framework:

Agricultural digitalization is currently fragmented, with disparate and uncoordinated data collection efforts across various stakeholders. AgDx aims to provide a structured framework to streamline and benchmark these initiatives, ensuring standardized data collection and enabling informed decision-making to drive measurable impact.

Duplication of Efforts: Siloed initiatives across startups, governments, and institutions result in inefficient, overlapping data collection. By implementing a framework, AgDx can guide efforts to minimize redundancy, optimize resource utilization, so that efforts are focused where they are most needed.
Lack of Collaboration: A fragmented approach hinders scalability and long-term sustainability. AgDx promotes collaboration among stakeholders, including startups, governments, academia, and industry, creating synergies that will drive scalable, impactful solutions.
Scattered Digital Initiatives: Broad, unfocused digital efforts risk diluting their potential impact. AgDx ensures a targeted, use-case-driven strategy, focusing on highlighting critical gaps impacting the entire value chain such as credit access, supply chain bottlenecks, and market linkages.
Limited Inclusivity: Digital transformation in agriculture must be participatory and inclusive. AgDx prioritizes and welcomes contributions from a diverse range of stakeholders—policymakers, researchers, farmer organizations, and industry players—that in turn will guide innovation and drive the widespread adoption of digital agriculture solutions.
Measuring Digital and Data-Driven Agriculture: The World Bank’s $1.5 billion investment across 65 locations emphasizes foundational infrastructure, including soil data digitization, farm registries, and geotagged farm IDs. AgDx provides a composite framework to benchmark progress, inform policy-making, and identify and scale best practices in digital agriculture.
Need for Institutional Architecture: A fragmented, state-led approach can slow the adoption of agricultural digitalization. Establishing autonomous institutions—similar to UIDAI—can accelerate agricultural digitization with credibility, ensuring stakeholder trust and nationwide coordination. AgDx can identify and spotlight such initiatives - or the lack of them; to encourage action.

AgDx is continuously evolving to support stakeholders, particularly local institutions and farmers, and maximize its impact. The framework can be further strengthened by incorporating additional metrics and exploring new use cases. Identifying opportunities for businesses and community-driven initiatives through AgDx’s data will enhance its utility and create a more sustainable and inclusive ecosystem for digital agriculture.

However, creating a comprehensive framework is only the first step. The success of AgDx depends on:

Ensuring the framework is relevant and widely adopted (salience).
Leveraging usage to continuously improve the framework (accrued value).
Incorporating user feedback to drive rapid iteration and refinement (resilient).

Additionally, in developing the Agri Digitalisation Framework (AgDx), challenges arise from inconsistent data across states. The goal is to create a standardized, transparent framework, similar to sustainability indices used in the corporate sector. Furthermore, technology and governance challenges around data management need collaborative frameworks between central and state governments. Bridging cooperative and competitive federalism will be key to the success of agricultural digitalisation policies.

Key Objectives of AgDx:

Build and publish a holistic multi-year framework - with a comprehensive set of digitalisation pillars, indicators, and sub-indicators that demonstrate the greatest propensity for impact on Agriculture, incorporating feedback from stakeholders, across the Public and Private sectors, Governments, Global foundations, and entrepreneurs.
Build and publish scorecards and statistical indices - to assess and accelerate the penetration, maturity, and impact of Agri Digitalisation across Indian States & Crop value chains, using publicly available, qualitative, and quantitative information, (and across countries in the future).
Leverage Digitalisation of Agriculture - to enable data-led decision-making, build actionable pathways, and catalyze collaborative efforts across stakeholders to accelerate the digitalisation of agriculture and create a positive impact on Farmers.

AgDx’s Developmental Approach:

AgDx was developed based on the guiding principles of The Agri Collaboratory, aimed at reducing siloed, competitive behavior, bias for impact and fostering collaboration, to accelerate innovation in agricultural digitalization. AgDx’s key principles include:

Minimizing Duplication: AgDx aligns efforts across startups, governments, and institutions to prevent inefficiencies and optimize resource use.
Ecosystem-Led Efforts: Encouraging partnerships between startups, governments, academia, and the private sector for sustainable solutions for smallholder farmers.
Use-Case Orientation: Designing targeted solutions to address specific gaps in the ecosystem.
Inclusive Collaboration: Promoting diverse contributions and fostering an open environment for innovation.

AgDx 1.0 marks the start of a long-term, stakeholder-driven journey in agricultural digitization through comparative assessments, and publishing of the existing state of affairs. It emphasizes accurate measurement, iteration, and integration of academic, industry, and policy insights. Developed through a co-creation approach, early partners like CGIAR, IFC, and TAC contribute expertise in agri-digitalization, research, and engagement.

As an open, transparent digital public good, AgDx relies on publicly available data and is designed to be neutral, self-sustaining, and ecosystem-driven. This ensures continuous evolution through joint funding and contributions, guiding businesses, governments, and academia in driving digital agricultural transformation.

AgDx 1.0 and AgDx 2.0:

AgDx 1.0 serves as a foundational baseline, setting the stage for future development. It is designed to evolve, incorporating stakeholder feedback and new developments to remain relevant in driving digital agriculture transformation. Like the Indian Premier League (IPL), it adapts annually. AgDx 2.0 will build upon this foundation, focusing on deepening insights, expanding capabilities, and addressing emerging challenges, while maintaining a holistic approach adaptable to regional contexts.

Incorporated in AgDx 1.0:

Building on the feedback received from the participants at the launch event, we have incorporated and/or tweaked the following elements in AgDx 1.0:

Social & Cultural Dimensions: Feedback from Harsh Kumar Bhanwala on integrating social, cultural, and institutional aspects is addressed to an extent. State-level collaboration and the role of big tech in farmer adoption are included.
Consent & Data Governance: Incorporates mechanisms for consent measurement and data governance as per the DPDP Act, based on Ishira’s feedback.
Supply Chain & Logistics: Addressed to some extent through warehousing; detailed analysis is planned for AgDx 2.0.
Marketplaces & Trade Competitiveness: Digitization of Mandis and farmer registration on platforms are covered, while a deeper analysis of trade competitiveness will be explored in 2.0.
Use-Case Orientation: Parmesh Shah’s emphasis on readiness-driven, use-case-specific digital investments has shaped AgDx 1.0 and will continue in 2.0.
Enhanced Observability: Rathish Balakrishnan’s feedback on state and district-level observability has been implemented and will be expanded in 2.0.
Global Best Practices: Sheen’s input will refine data analytics and global perspectives in future updates.
Actionable Timelines & Collaboration: Hemendra Mathur’s recommendations for structured collaboration and timelines have influenced 1.0 and will guide future developments, including measuring the farmers’ use of Big Tech platforms like YouTube, WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram. His suggestion to "get started rather than wait for perfection” is driving us forward at speed.

Planned Enhancements for AgDx 2.0:

The following feedback received during the launch event will be incorporated into AgDx 2.0:

Social & Cultural Metrics: Indicators for social capital, community resilience, and gender inclusion, will be included with more focus on tenant farmers and landless labourers.
Supply Chain & Logistics: A deeper exploration of market access, cold chain, storage infrastructure, and digital platform readiness for transactions.
Data Governance & Security: Strengthen privacy frameworks and explore data monetization models for farmer cooperatives.
Technology & AI Integration: Leverage AI, remote sensing, and blockchain to enhance insights, predictive analytics, and digital advisory services.
Agri-Fintech Linkages: Expand analysis of agri-fintech connections, including credit-scoring models and loan accessibility.
Continuous Improvement: Establish feedback loops for ongoing framework refinements.
Sandboxes for Experimentation: Create testing environments for digital solutions to enable iterative refinement before large-scale implementation.

Key Takeaways from the Launch Event:

The dynamic discussion from the attendees and agri experts present at the event resulted in the following key takeaways for us to keep in mind as we build AgDx 1.0:

Asymmetric Relationship Between Center and States: There is a noticeable imbalance in the investment between central and state governments, with some states receiving more investment but yielding lower returns. This discrepancy highlights the importance of ensuring alignment between state and central initiatives for agricultural investments to be effective.
State Ecosystem Variations: Agricultural ecosystems differ significantly across states (e.g., Karnataka vs. West Bengal), including varying levels of data maturity related to digitalisation - influencing the success of state-level policies and investments, even when they lack alignment with central policies.
Income Discrepancies Among Farmers: Marginal farmers earn far less than their potential, suggesting that income growth may be far from the doubling targets often discussed. Addressing this gap is crucial for improving livelihoods.
State Learning Mechanisms: Facilitating knowledge exchange between states will help replicate successful models and scale effective solutions. Simple, replicable approaches will be key.
Digital Adoption by Farmers: Measuring the impact of digital platforms, like social media, on farmers' activities can serve as indirect indicators of digital adoption and readiness.
Long-term Data Strategy: A long-term vision for evolving the dimensions measured is needed, as traditional metrics (e.g., internet connectivity) may become outdated by 2030-2035.
Policy Failures Documentation: Documenting failures in agricultural policies across states can provide insights into what works and inform future policymaking.
Consent Frameworks and Governance: With agricultural data being sensitive, effective consent frameworks and redress mechanisms are vital to mitigate data misuse risks. Further, there is a need to establish robust frameworks for data governance to protect privacy, ensure consent-based data sharing, and support equitable data monetisation, particularly for farmer cooperatives.
Inclusion of Supply Chain Participants: Examining existing supply chain infrastructures that support small farmers is essential to assess their operational effectiveness and make improvements.
Importance of Quality Data: Accurate and consistent data collection is crucial for informed decision-making. Variations in data across government departments complicate the understanding of agricultural dynamics.
Focus on Agri-Fintech: AgDx can play a key role in enhancing financial inclusion for smallholder farmers by improving access to credit, enabling more effective risk assessments, and facilitating innovative insurance models.
Farmer-Centric Design: A strong emphasis on smallholder farmers' needs and challenges will guide the development of digital solutions, ensuring they are both accessible and impactful.
Technology Access vs. Utilization: While access to technology is easy to measure, its actual usage by farmers is more complex. Understanding farmer readiness and willingness, digital literacy, role of social and societal factors such as women-led initiatives, especially in poorer states, is essential for successful adoption.

Expert Insights from the Event:

Parmesh Shah: "By improving observability and measurability, states can better compete for public services and investments, strengthening competitive federalism."
Rathish Balakrishnan: "Creating a transparent and measurable framework will empower states to drive agricultural digitalization more effectively."
Dr. Amit Kapoor: "Scientific rigour is essential in designing these frameworks—most of the work happens in the initial design and development stage."
Harsh Kumar Bhanwala: "We need to integrate social, cultural, and institutional aspects to ensure digital agriculture reaches tenant farmers and strengthens institutions."
Hemendra Mathur: "We must get started rather than wait for perfection. More indicators will be added, and the framework will strengthen over time. Farmers’ use of Big Tech platforms like YouTube, WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram should also be measured."
Ishira Mehta: "If primary indicators lack data, proxies should be used. It’s vital to include measures of data privacy and consent management by states."
Aneesh Jain: "Framework indicators should evolve— outdated ones must be replaced to ensure relevance and impact."
Venky Ramachandran: "We should highlight both policy successes and failures in states to ensure continuous learning and improvement."
Sanjay Vidyarthi: "Indicators must prioritize the needs of small farmers to ensure digital agriculture benefits the most vulnerable."
Sunil Khairnar: "AgDx can collectively help reduce the time to build Agri Tech startups, cutting it down from the current 15 years."

Next Steps:

As the next steps, TAC, in collaboration with CGIAR and IFC will be incorporating inputs from this event and freezing measurements across all dimensions of the framework. Further, the team will be reaching out to state governments to inform them of the initiative and will be conducting in-depth evaluations of each state, to launch AgDx 1.0 in April 2025.

Simultaneously, the TAC team will also organise workshops and forums to share learnings and best practices and work with policymakers to align AgDx with existing digital agriculture initiatives.

Acknowledgements:

The AgDx launch was made possible through the collaboration of TAC, CGIAR, the Institute for Competitiveness, and various stakeholders committed to transforming digital agriculture. The broader success of AgDx relies on the collective contributions of a diverse group of individuals and institutions, showcasing the strength of an open and inclusive ecosystem.

A special thanks to the self-shot video contributions from partners, highlighting their vision for AgDx and its potential impact.

Contact Information:

For more details, reach out to:

Navya Mehrotra: navya@agricollaboratory.com

Nipun Mehrotra: nipun@agricollaboratory.com

Sanjiv Rangrass: sanjiv@agricollaboratory.com

TAC Website: https://agricollaboratory.com