Workstreams
Our workstreams are focused on agri tech use cases that empower smallholder farmers
The Agri Collaboratory's Current Workstreams
AgFx - Democratizing Finance for Smallholder Farmers
Project AgFx aims to simplify Farmer Credit Assessment for Small farmers (specially tenanted and women) by triangulating consented, multi-year, disparate, public, and private data sets such as farmer ids, farm records and cropping history. AgFx partners are attempting to generate an efficient, authentic assessment of purpose neutral loans for small & tenanted farmers in less than 15 mins and at a reasonable cost. A proof of concept for the same is being developed in a few states, and TAC is looking for new partners in other geographies for similar programs - FPOs, ELIs, implementation partners, AgTech, etc.
Motivation - The “Why”
As per Agriculture census, 2015-16 India has 126 million small and marginal farmers and requires Rs 37-40 Lakh Crore of working capital annually. RBI (2019) estimated that approx. 59.1 % of small and marginal farmers and 30 % of agricultural households avail credit from non-institutional sources probably since they cannot offer collateral. As per RBI “farm credit is largely dependent on the operated area due to constraints on data available on other credit determinants”.
Project AgFx Objective & Scope - The “What”
TAC has built a high-impact use case to establish a holistic, authenticated, low cost, digital assessment for millions of small Farmer households, their Farm and Crop to access institutional finance.
Project AgFx seeks to re-think Agri Finance for all farmers - especially small holder, tenanted, women farmers by triangulating consented, multi-year, disparate, public, and private data sets at high speed and low cost to create an affordable digital assessment of 1) Farmer’s household, 2) Her Farm, 3) Crop - in a few minutes, at a base cost of Rs 50, to achieve a national scale of 50-100 Million farmers. A “proof of concept” and pilots are planned in 2024 along with collaborators.
Cash-Flow Lending - An exciting alternative vision
While collateral-based lending favors farm owners -- cash flow lending focuses on the “farmer” rather than the “owner” and will help integrate millions of tenanted and women farmers with no access to collateral. Gradually credit histories get built up, further integrating them into the formal national economy. We estimate cash-flow lending will formalize ~ 20 Lakh crore of Agri loans into institutional lenders.
The 2025 Vision
Shanti, a tenanted farmer who grows paddy on a two-acre farm, requires a loan quickly since the sowing season has started early. She approaches her village level entrepreneur (VLE) part of the FPO with her details. Much like a LIC agent / independent financial advisor, the digitally trained VLE captures her details with consent, accesses pre-approved lender templates to help her understand and select the best options and submit the loan request digitally. Within minutes, Shanti gets approval from 3 banks, chooses one and links insurance to cover the loan. Some money is transferred to an input seller of her choice and balance into her bank. The VLE coordinates the process, and she pays him for his advice. VLE/FPO also helps procure quality inputs at affordable prices & provide market access for better realization. The lender and all other participants are given periodic updates on her crop’s progress.
Roadmap - The “How”
As per Agriculture census, 2015-16 India has 126 million small and marginal farmers and requires Rs 37-40 Lakh Crore of working capital annually. RBI (2019) estimated that approx. 59.1 % of small and marginal farmers and 30 % of agricultural households avail credit from non-institutional sources probably since they cannot offer collateral. As per RBI “farm credit is largely dependent on the operated area due to constraints on data available on other credit determinants”.
AgDx - Agri Digitization Index for India & the Global South
Evaluating penetration, maturity, and impact of digital agri practices across States & agri value chain.
TAC and its partners are co-creating AgDx to assess the penetration, maturity and impact of digital agri practices on farmers. It will help develop actionable insights to accelerate digitalisation of agriculture. Further, TAC's AgDx will help frame policies, attract capital, accelerate innovation and learning, civil society mobilisation, and finally benefit farmers through adoption of digital agriculture.
Roadmap - The “How”
The agriculture sector faces a multitude of complex and interconnected challenges. Lack of access to modern technology, information, markets, and finance makes it difficult for small and marginal farmers to improve their productivity and profitability. An ecosystem thinking approach, which considers the various stakeholders, resources, and systemic interdependencies, is necessary to solve these challenges.
Digital technologies can play a key role in bringing this systemic approach, as has been done in the finance/health sectors leveraging UPI and Aadhar.
Digitalization in agriculture holds significant potential to address the challenges of scale and replicability. 160 million hectares of arable land needs to be mapped, tracked, and updated constantly to address issues of productivity, farmer profitability and climate change. And for this to happen, all forces will need to come together – State, Centre, private, public and research institutions to name a few.
Digitalization in agriculture holds significant potential to address the challenges of scale and replicability. 160 million hectares of arable land needs to be mapped, tracked, and updated constantly to address issues of productivity, farmer profitability and climate change. And for this to happen, all forces will need to come together – State, Centre, private, public and research institutions to name a few.
As stated, our belief is that innovations and contributions in this area will have to happen on multiple fronts – Centre, State, Public and Private organisations, individuals, startups etc. Currently, most of the data elements lie with the Government and private agencies. How do we motivate all of them to digitise this information and then share it on public platforms? How do we monitor progress on this front and simultaneously track it?
One approach is to create an index for Agri digitalisation which:
- 1. Assesses the digitalisation levels in agriculture across all the states and country.
- 2. Provides insights to stakeholders on areas needing improvement and support for digitisation.
- 3. Catalyses the digitalisation journey across the country
- 4. As digitisation improves, it provides actionable insights to the State and Central Governments of India, investors, market players, and entrepreneurs in the Agri-tech space.
- 5. Enables fact-based (data-led) decision-making by all agricultural sector stakeholders.
G20 Alignment
The G20 in 2023, recognized the relevance of agriculture in achieving sustainable development and reducing poverty. An Agriculture Digitalisation Index assessing the maturity levels and impact of digitalisation in agriculture could help to raise awareness and provide a clear picture of the current state of digitalization in the agriculture sector.
Influence Policy Makers
India's agriculture sector is highly diverse, with significant variations in climate, soil types, and cropping patterns across different regions. An index like AgDx can provide policymakers with valuable insights into the current state of digitalization in different states and regions, as well as the potential impact of digital solutions on crop yields, farmer incomes, and environmental sustainability. This information could be used to guide policy decisions, such as investments in infrastructure, education and training, and research and development.
Cross-Country Collaboration
AgDx also has the potential to provide a basis for cross-country collaborations and help to identify best practices and innovations that can be adopted by Indian farmers and policymakers to promote knowledge transfer and collaboration. An index like this could provide a common language and framework for discussing the challenges and opportunities of digitalization in the agricultural sector across different countries and regions.
AgDx - Ecosystem
