The Lilliputian Era of Indian Agriculture Begins
State of Agritech - 31st March 2024
ABM Townhall Alert: State of Aquaculture on April 2nd at 7 PM IST: In this edition of ABM Townhall, Pavan Kosaraju (AquaExchange), Aditya Dash (Frozen Shrimp Exporter), and Willem van der Pijl (Shrimp Insights) join us to survey the State of Aquaculture in 2024.
Is aquatech agritech in steroids? We plan to delve into mental models to grapple with aquaculture sector dynamics vis-a-vis agriculture; what India can learn from Ecuador; how to strengthen India’s Blue economy and a lot more. ABM Members can RSVP here
<A Quick Word from ABM Sponsors>
“Agribusiness Matters is collaborating with Metal Dog Labs LLC to offer a free webinar on translating AI's potential in a native Agrifood context. "AI for Agrifood Leaders" is a free session for Agrifood leaders to explore the potential impact of Artificial Intelligence in the Agrifood sector.
The focus is more on “So What” and not necessarily “How”. What can happen if the real power of AI is unleashed? Can we trace those impacts with clues we are seeing in the upstream and downstream Agrifood value chain?
-This is NOT a technical session, but will focus on the "So what?" for agrifood leaders.
-90 minute session (which includes 20-30 minutes of Q&A)
-We will look at mental models to grasp the potential of AI
-Do a deep dive of curated examples of AI in the Agrifood context
Rhishi and I will be conducting two sessions to make it convenient for interested folks from different regions
Option 1: 15th April 830 AM - 10:00 AM PST (Suitable for North & South America, Europe)
Option 2: 16th April 830 PM - 10:00 PM PST (Suitable for Asia, Australia, Africa)
You can select your time slot and sign up here.
Ministry of the Future
1. Can Ecosystems Shape the Lilliputian Era of Indian Agriculture? Case in Point: Vistaar, BharatNet, Krishi DSS, ONDC and Krishi ICCC
Agriculture, driven by technology, goes through cycles of centralisation and decentralisation. Thanks to India’s faith in Digital Public Infrastructure, the decentralisation wave has reached a critical threshold.
2. Agricultural Smiling Curve Revisited
Much like the airline industry, agriculture captures a fraction of the value it creates. When agritech startups graduate to reach, as my sparring friend Mark Kahn put it in a recent conversation, ‘digitally enabled agribusiness end state’, can they disrupt agriculture’s value capture curse?
1. Can Ecosystems Shape the Lilliputian Era of Indian Agriculture?
Deep gratitude for invigorating conversations with my agribusiness mentor Jagadeesh Sunkad which sparked this essay.
I am currently reading Lilliput Land, India’s Consumption Story Expert Rama Bijapurkar’s latest book. The book argues with the help of a lot of numbers that Small is indeed driving India’s Mega Consumption story.
Could it have implications for Indian Agriculture?
Over the past few weeks, I have been toying with interesting possibilities offered by Vistaar, BharatNet, Krishi DSS, ONDC and Krishi ICCC. When I toss each of these possibilities into one big pot and stir them, the big picture that is intimidatingly alive is this.
Large ecosystems comprising myriads of small FPOs, cooperatives, retailers, traders, exporters, logistics players, processors, D2C players digitally yoked together by Digital Public Infrastructure will drive the future of India’s agriculture.
To understand the bigger picture, we need to take a step back. A long step back.
As I’ve written before, cultural evolution, if you approximate it enough in linear terms without being teleological, was designed to prepare homo sapiens (even though we may not be wise) for modern life over 5000 years. In doing so, our modes of organizing have been evolving from Tribes → Countries - > Corporations - > Ecosystems
The ascent of government-sponsored Digital Public Infrastructure like Vistaar is accelerating this shift from corporations to ecosystems. Big 6 Agri-Input Players are already busy building ecosystems. Almost every other agritech player will organize themselves into one or the other ecosystem most amenable to their growth.
I am not saying corporations are getting disrupted and all such cliched stuff. I am saying ecosystems will be far more powerful than corporations.
Pay attention to the architecture of VISTAAR below and you will know what I am talking about.