Innovation is necessity for business and agriculture: Official

Innovation is a necessity for business as well as for agriculture, said Devendra Katara, Director, Ministry of Micro Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME), Government of India. Katara was speaking at the Conference on Innovations and Entrepreneurship in Agriculture organised with the theme “Moving Towards Agriculture 2.0” at New Delhi.

 

In his address, Katara shared details of the various schemes being run by the Ministry of MSME to support individuals for setting up units in food processing, agri and allied sectors.

 

Speaking on the occasion, Dr VPS Arora, distinguished Professor, Sharda University remarked, “We need innovation to check the dangerous scenario of reducing fertility of soil.” He added that innovation should also have the impact of increasing not only the productivity but also the income of farmers.

 

In his address, Gunbir Singh, Past Chairman, CII Punjab State Council emphasised on the rising number of start-ups in the agriculture sector that are using information technology that are using IT services in facilitating credit lending to farmers, FPOs (farmer producer organisations) and entities engaged in agriculture production and supply chain. He claimed that every 9th Agritech startup in the world is from India and USD 248 million funding has been received by Indian Agritech startups till June 2019.

 

Gokul Patnaik, Chairman, Global AgriSystems advised the farming community to continuously strive for improving farm production by inculcating indigenous innovation techniques using existing resources