Commercial Agri-Tech opportunities in India for Agri-EPI and partners
As part of the UK’s new Technology Partnership with India, Agri-EPI Centre will be part of a trade delegation travelling to the cities of Chandigarh, New Delhi and Mumbai in December, taking part in a major tech festival along the way.
As the world’s the largest single agricultural market, farming contributes 16 per cent of India’s GDP, employing 49% of the Indian workforce on 160 million hectares of arable land to provide food for 1.3 billion people. With more than half of the Indian population expected to live in urban areas by 2050 and agricultural workers dropping to just over a quarter of the total workforce, mechanisation and technology will play an increasingly important role in improving the productivity, efficiency and sustainability of Indian agriculture.
Led by the UK Government’s Department for International Trade, the UK trade delegation will meet with senior policy makers in the Indian Government, three State Governments and private sector companies. The aim will be to gain insight of local market conditions, opportunities and challenges while building a collaborative network with senior decision makers, influencers, academics and buyers in the Indian agri-tech industry.
The programme will start north of Delhi in the combined Punjab/Haryana state capital, Chandigarh, and will include a roundtable with both state governments, progressive farmers and academic institutions.
On 12 December, the delegation will attend the ‘India-UK Future Tech Festival in Delhi, where they will participate in the ‘Path Breaking Innovations in Agriculture’ session. This will involve key officials in Indian Government, private businesses, research organisations and UK Government ministerial attendance.
Following the festival, the delegation head on to Mumbai to interact with leading private businesses as well as the Government of Maharashtra. The delegates will end their trip with visits to farms in the Nashik region, India’s leading wine-growing area. Watch this space for a report on the trip in early January!
Meanwhile, Agri-EPI Centre member Willand Group Ltd is holding an event in London on 15 January for businesses wishing to learn more about accessing the Indian agricultural market.
The ‘Opportunities for Agri-Tech: Indian Market Catalyst Event’ will offer a summary of the market and highlight the key opportunities available to UK/EU companies. Companies will also have an opportunity to ‘pitch’ to investors and businesses which are actively looking for investment opportunities. More information is available here.
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Agri-EPI Centre will work closely with a variety of Chinese partners to progress ‘SmartFarm 1.0’. The key partner organisations are NERCITA, the National Engineering Research Centre for Information Technology in Agriculture, who will host the main elements of the Smart Farm 1.0. The other key partner is Chinese Ministry of Science and Technologies China Rural Technology Development Centre (CRTDC) who will oversee the Chinese delivery partners. The initial focus will be technology associated with arable crops to create a better understanding of productivity from the land resource.
