Agribusiness and farm advisory platforms

Running the agri business, from the seed dealer to the farmer's adviser

In Market Segment 45.1, Satellite crop monitoring, a bank checked satellite images of a cotton farmer's five acres in Telangana. Then it lent the money for the season. Now the farmer spends it.

The seed comes from a seed company. It passes through a distributor and then a local dealer, who sells it to the farmer. The farmer sows it. Halfway through the season, the leaves show damage. Is it a pest? What should the farmer spray, and how much? And once the cotton is picked, it still has to reach a buyer.

All of this is the agricultural business. It sits between the farmer and the shop shelf. It includes three kinds of work:

seed and chemical makers selling through distributors and dealers
advisers telling farmers what to plant and spray
the supply chains that move crops to market

Few software companies here hire engineers in India. Many of the Indian agritech companies that grew in the last decade are not covered in this Market Segment.

Every company named here has posted software engineering jobs in India. Famous companies that don't actively hire software engineers in India are left out.

Keep reading, free

One more section is on this page: Sellers, advisers and supply chains. Sign in to read it here, in full.

Continue with Google

Sellers, advisers and supply chains

Sellers, advisers and supply chains

AGDATA, LP

with engineers in Pune, works for American seed and crop-protection companies. Crop protection means the chemicals that kill pests, weeds and plant diseases. These companies sell through distributors and retailers, and pay them rebates: money back for selling a certain amount. AGDATA manages the sales data, the rebates and the marketing programmes that run through this chain.

Digital Green

with engineers in Bengaluru, is a nonprofit, or NGO. It runs Farmer.Chat, an AI adviser that answers farmers' questions in their own language. Back to the cotton farmer from the start of this Market Segment: the farmer can describe the damaged leaves in Telugu and get an answer. (More on Digital Green in Market Segment 44.3, Tech-for-good nonprofits, in Industry Vertical 44, Govtech and nonprofits.)

Terrantic

with engineers in Bengaluru, sells AI for planning production and supply in food and agriculture. (More on this kind of planning in Market Segment 30.1, Supply chain planning software, in Industry Vertical 30, Supply chain and logistics.)

AstroFarm

is a farming product from 42Gears, with its team in Bengaluru. 42Gears is a Bengaluru company best known for software that manages companies' devices, such as the scanners in a warehouse. (More on 42Gears in Market Segment 4.4, Endpoint security and device management, in Industry Vertical 4, Cybersecurity.)

The business around the farm: seed and crop-protection makers sell through a distributor and a local dealer to the farmer, and pay rebates back along that chain; an adviser tells the farmer what to plant and spray; and supply chains move the crop to a buyer.

One more company here is covered mainly in another Market Segment. Varaha, with engineers in Bengaluru, issues carbon credits for regenerative farming. Regenerative farming uses methods that rebuild the soil, and healthier soil stores more carbon. A carbon credit is a certificate that one tonne of carbon dioxide has been kept out of the air. Companies buy these credits to make up for their own emissions. (More on Varaha in Market Segment 40.7, Carbon accounting and sustainability software, in Industry Vertical 40, Energy and climate tech.)

A carbon credit from a farm: regenerative farming rebuilds the soil, healthier soil stores more carbon, a carbon credit certifies that one tonne of carbon dioxide has been kept out of the air, and a company buys it to make up for its own emissions.

The extension worker in every phone.

In India, the government's agricultural extension services send officers to advise farmers on crops, pests and farming methods. There are too few officers for too many farmers. An AI adviser can answer in Hindi, Telugu or Odia, about this crop and this pest. It reaches farmers no officer could. Its value depends on two things: whether farmers trust it, and whether its advice is right for their soil.

That is the business around the farm: the companies that sell to the farmer, advise the farmer and move the crop to market. But seed and advice don't clear the weeds. Market Segment 45.3, Farm robotics, goes out into the field itself.

Who they hire

Who these companies hire, and for what, is on What agritech companies hire for.

← Previous in Agritech

Satellite crop monitoring

Next in Agritech →

Farm robotics