"R&D in Indiaspecific tech must be emphasised"

Taranjeet Singh Bhamra, CEO and Founder, Agnext Technologies

Agnext Technologies is a leading agritech startup that provides deep-tech enabled solutions for food quality assessment, monitoring, and management. The company has innovated full-stack solutions, based on a unique integration of adaptive hardware, integrated software, and data analytics, which aim to solve quality-related issues in the post-harvest agriculture value chain. By developing the world's first technologies for standardising food quality using AI, it is bringing trust, speed, and transparency to the agriculture value chain. Recently, the company raised a total of $21 million in Series A funding from Alpha Wave Incubation (AWI) fund, which is backed by Disruptad and managed by Falcon Edge. Taranjeet Singh Bhamra,

CEO and Founder, Agnext Technologies shares his views with Agrospectrum on how agritech startups are solving issues of agriculture value chains. Edited excerpts;

What’s Agnext's contribution in ensuring food quality and safety in the agricultural value chain?

With billions worth of agriculture stock being wasted every year due to unsatisfactory quality of the food, the agriculture industry faces major trading losses, deterioration in food value, adulteration and increase in value chain inefficiencies. To curb these issues and to bring about a more structured and formal channel of commodity testing, the company came into being by offering a ‘New-age Technology’ platform for sustainable agriculture. Using Artificial Intelligence (Ai)-enabled quality assessment technologies, the company helps in solving quality issues and enables more trust and transparency in the food value chains.

With the help of pioneering solutions using artificial intelligence, computer vision and Internet of Things (IOT), Agnext is changing the approach of agribusinesses towards procurement, trade, production and consumption of commodities. The technology provides accurate and instant quality analysis of various commodities like milk, tea, grains, spices and more. It also provides instant on-field quality assessment, digital records, and real time data of quality during procurement, transit and storage, along with traceability through all stages of the supply chain.

What is the focus of Agnext’s tech innovation for agribusinesses?

The company’s mission is to solve quality issues and enable more transparent processes in the food value chains. Through its technology, it is focused on eliminating the scope of adulteration and deterioration of commodities. Agnext is providing agribusinesses integrated technology solutions that analyses the produce and ensures that the food products meet a certain safety and quality standard for good quality production and profit across value chains.

The company has created a disruptive technology suite called ‘Qualix’.how will it mitigate the issues of commodity trade in agribusinesses?

Qualix is our full stack platform that can be used to solve the problem of food quality, accelerate food trade and improve efficiency. Qualix can be used to assess the food quality for multiple commodities within 30 seconds, thus

enabling agribusinesses to fasten the procurement and operations processes, optimise costs, enable traceability, and ensure highest quality of the product. Its AI engine uses computer vision, and IOT sensing solutions to assess the commodity and give instant quality analysis. With the help of Qualix, commodity trade is being digitised while driving trust, agility and transparency in the agribusinesses.

How do you foresee AI solving many of the problems traditionally associated with industries like tea and spice?

Agriculture sector is primed for technological interventions. In the tea industry, there is immense potential to standardise the quality assessment and improve price realisations across the value chains. We have developed, in collaboration with Tea Research Association, Tragnext- a Digital Ballometric technology that works using the power of AI and computer vision. Using an Aibased image recognition engine, it can classify leaves, buds, banjhi, shoots and other parts of the daily tea harvests and provide rapid assessment. It eliminates the time-consuming and errorprone manual techniques, and brings efficiency, transparency and profit for all stakeholders. Similarly, we can use ‘Qualix’ to measure the quality of spices such as turmeric, chilli, etc. Using AI, we can bring in more standardisation in the food trade, thereby building trust in buyer-seller interactions. Additionally, by integrating AI with data analytics we can establish effective data management practices and access critical data-led insights for better decision making.

What are the plans of the company for FY 2021-22 in terms of new technologies and strategic expansion?

We look to expand our commodities portfolio and increase our geographic footprint. We are also focusing on our R&D efforts to increase the gamut of our technological solutions to further solve problems in various food value chains.

What is the contribution of agritech startups in the growth of the agri sector?

Agritech is an emerging sector and is being fuelled by the rapid growth of agritech startups. Across the country, agri-entrepreneurs are innovating diverse uses of technology to solve various problems in the agricultural value chains. Undoubtedly, the future of agriculture is digital and agritech startups are paving the way for the next revolution in the agriculture sector. With the use of emerging technologies, agritech startups are providing solutions, which are uniquely suited to India’s dynamic agricultural diversity, to improve productivity and profitability for farmers, agribusinesses and other stakeholders. With expanding deep tech interventions into agriculture, agritech startups are facilitating standardisation, building informative databases and providing critical insights to ensure a smooth farm to fork value chain.

What inputs are required for the growth of agritech startups in India?

Agriculture sector has traditionally been considered a tech-agnostic space. Today, agritech startups are using deep tech interventions to change this equation and revolutionise agriculture. However, though the scope is vast, the challenges are equally big. From investment to infrastructure to innovation, the agritech sector needs immense support from established systems to build a sustainable growth path. There needs to be greater emphasis on R&D to invent more India-specific technologies which can deliver desired solutions on-ground. To facilitate the growth of agritech startups, a confluence of multiple stakeholders such as government, regulatory bodies, technology experts, investors, industry experts, among others need to come together to build a supportive ecosystem.

How would you envisage the future of agritech startups in India?

Increasing technological penetrations in the agriculture sector along with agriculturespecific tech advancements are paving the way for agricultural revolution 4.0. Successful tech interventions are also building greater confidence among stakeholders, whether farmers or agribusinesses, about the benefits of using technology to solve persisting legacy issues in the sector. The agriculture industry is the backbone of our economy. With the adoption and integration of AI, IOT and data analytics in the agriculture sector, we are looking at a more robust agricultural engine that has the potential to power and accelerate India’s growth.