The Indian agriculture industry is adopting FaaS models to address the emerging issues

Farming is considered as the backbone of India. The country is predominantly an agrarian economy. Unfortunately, the recent collapse of revenues and products in the industry is driving agriculture towards the worst phase. To recover from the spreading economic crisis, farmers in India are increasingly adopting Farmer-as-a-Service (FaaS) models to address the emerging issues.

Farming contributes to about 17% of India’s GDP. Agriculture accounts for around US$390 billion in the country. About 60% of India’s rural population depends on agriculture. Even though India is the leading producer of multiple crops, there is potential to improve the sector’s performance as the country trials its international peers in various aspects and faces multiple challenges throughout the production cycle. To make matters worse, the migration of people from rural basins to urban lands is also dramatically affecting farmer engagement in agriculture.

Currently, around 70% of the agricultural households comprise small farmers with less than one hectare of landholding, struggling to make ends meet and depend on loans for their farming activities. Things took a steep turn for the agriculture sector since the Indian government implemented three new farm laws that attracted wide criticism and contempt. The government has recently announced three ordinances namely, the amendment to Essential Commodities Act, barrier-free trade, Farmers (Empowerment & Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance & Farm Services Ordinance, 2020. Since the act got passed in both houses, farmers from North Indian states such as Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan, Punjab, etc are gathering at the national capital to protest for its repeal.

In a nutshell, the Indian agriculture industry is not in good shape. Given the importance of the sector, both government and private players are working to improve the efficiency and productivity of Indian agriculture by exploring Farming-as-a-Service (FaaS). We have seen SaaS, PaaS and IaaS models ruling the IT service industry. The similar kind of benefits is being served in the FaaS to acknowledge and patch the increasing challenges. FaaS model is the beginning of change where agriculture can be viewed positively and can be a profitable business for all.

Farming-as-a-Service (FaaS)

Farming-as-a-Service (FaaS) offers innovative, professional-grade solutions for agriculture and allied services via a subscription or pay-per-use model. These farm management solutions allow stakeholders to make data-driven decisions to boost productivity and efficiency. FaaS converts fixed upfront costs into variable ongoing costs for farmers, thus making the techniques more affordable for a majority of small farmers. FaaS offers information sharing, analytics and precision farming tools.

FaaS allows stakeholders to make data-driven decisions to boost productivity and efficiency. The data is collected directly through drones, satellites, farmers, market agents and government agencies. The gathered information is further processed and analysed to find what works well on the sector. The analysed information is leveraged by farmers to adopt precision farming practices to boost productivity, government to empower field officers to provide timely support, and corporates to optimise input application and real-time monitoring of crop output. Many start-ups in India have adopted FaaS solutions. Currently, the total investor funding for FaaS is at US$105-115 million. Even big companies such as Mahindra & Mahindra, TAFE and John Deere have started experimenting with a pay-per-use model for tractors and other farm equipment. Some of the emerging front running FaaS provided start-ups are mentioned as follows,

• Agribolo- a farmer engagement start-up that opened in 2015 tries to link farmers with the marketplace by adopting farm-to-mill, farm-to-fork, and farm-to-warehouse models.
• Ninjacart- The Indian agriculture supply chain start-up Ninjacart connects food producers directly with retailers, restaurants, and service providers using in-house applications that drive end-to-end operations.
• Trringo- Trringo launched by Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd aims to rent farming equipment to farmers at affordable rates across the country.